My Poster Illustration for Bucks County Gilbert & Sullivan’s “Iolanthe”

It’s the time of year when singers and musicians from all over the Delaware Valley area converge to rehearse and perform the unique musical confections that are Gilbert & Sullivan operettas. This season the Bucks County Gilbert & Sullivan Society has chosen to perform Iolanthe, which is considered by aficionados to have the most beautiful score of any works of Sir Arthur Sullivan’s collaborations with W. S. Gilbert.

I am again pleased to have created the poster for this musically brilliant show. Iolanthe‘s subtitle is “The Peer and the Peri” and it tells the fanciful story of a “peri” – a Persian word for a fairy – and the peers in Parliament, that is, members of the House of Lords. Because a premise in the show is that fairies are all beautiful and never age, I was reminded of art nouveau posters – these are posters like the one below by Alphonse Mucha at the turn of the 20th century, which celebrated the beauty of women and nature in luxuriantly stylized designs.

In this story Iolanthe is a lovely fairy who, twenty-five years ago, made the terrible transgression of marrying a mortal, which goes against fairy law. For this she was banished from fairy society by the Queen of the fairies, and while in exile she had a son, Strephon, who grew up as a shepherd. When the show opens, Strephon, who is half-fairy and half-mortal, is now a handsome young man in love with a sweet maiden, Phyllis. Problems arise when we learn that Phyllis’ beauty is such that all the members of the House of Lords are also desperately in love with her! And they wish to prevent Strephon from making her his bride.

I started sketching my design, borrowing the circle and column elements from the Mucha poster. I wanted Iolanthe large as she is the title character, but as with all G&S shows, this is really an ensemble cast and so I wanted to include several other characters, smaller, grouped nearby, also as in the Mucha poster. This rough pencil sketch below shows the main elements – in the column area I planned to do foliage with some some distinctive set pieces intertwined among the leaves.

After I took some good photos of the actual cast members I tightened up the sketch. I hand-lettered the title, as did many art nouveau poster artists, emulating their 19th century poster style.

I drew and then digitally colored the decorative column spot drawings – these are based on sketches of the set by our wonderful scenic designer, Henry Heymann. These set pieces will be quite large onstage, giving the magical effect that we are watching a dream-like story unfold. I hid these among the column’s foliage designs, with some tiny fairies sprinkled in. I also placed some fairies flitting around with musical instruments in that column, because I love to reference our terrific orchestra – they add so much to the experience of listening to our shows with their grand symphonic sound.

I digitally colored my larger drawings for the poster, and then put them all together with the text, and the final result is below – my modern interpretation of an art nouveau poster for Iolanthe.

I expect this to be a beautiful show, with exceptionally lovely music! We have a terrific cast of singers and the Bucks County Gilbert & Sullivan Orchestra will accompany everyone with their always-magnificent sound. If you are in the Doylestown are in June, please join us for this funny, radiant musical – for more info about Bucks G&S click HERE . Tickets for Iolanthe can be purchased at the door, and you save on the price if you order online HERE.

Children’s Concert this Saturday

From the wonderful Lenape Chamber Ensemble, a delightful concert for children (and parents can come for free!) –

My Illustration for a New Musical Work based on Poems of Dorothy Parker

Composer Misha Dutka has written numerous operatic works in the past, and I have created logo images for his Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge, Liebovar and Brandon’s Song. He commissioned a new illustration for a work he’s developing now, based on the poems of Dorothy Parker, a writer of the Algonquin Round Table fame. While Ms. Parker had wit and humor in her reviews and stories, her life was not such a happy one. Her colleague Alexander Woollcott once stated of her, “That bird only sings when she’s unhappy.”

I’ll post more about the work when there are details for a premier performance, but here is the working image for “Unhappy Bird.”

‘Animal Musicians’ Variety Box of my Notecards

I’ve just listed a new item in my Etsy shop – I’ve combined my popular, hand-illustrated, animal musician notecards into a variety pack of 2 each of 4 whimsical drawings: a panda playing the piano, a fox playing the cello, a mouse dancing while playing the violin and a portly bear playing the French horn. The variety box is $12 (plus postage) and if there’s one specific animal you want, I also have boxes of 8 of each card separately, listed in my Etsy shop.

My notecards are printed in full color on sturdy card stock, invitation-size, which is 4.25″ wide and 5.5″ deep. Eight white envelopes are included with the 8 notecards, all in a sturdy white cardboard box with clear lid. The cards require standard first-class postage if mailed, and the cardstock is made from partially recycled paper and printed in the USA.

These notecards make a lovely gift for any musician, music teacher, music student or classical music lover. And if you live in the Central Bucks county area & would like to avoid the shipping charges (which can be over $5) please skip Etsy and just email me to see if we can arrange for you to pick up the cards in person.

To see everything in my Etsy shop just click HERE, and to see just this listing you can click HERE.

If you wish to have a pre-printed message put inside the card, or for special larger quantities of cards, please email me at achillesportfolio@gmail.com or through Etsy to inquire about charges for special options.

All artwork is (c) Pat Achilles and may not be reproduced.

Rabbits and Runner Ducks

Once again I have happily illustrated the flyer for the Lenape Chamber Ensemble’s Children’s Concert for next spring. This concert gives youngsters a taste of lovely classical music and teaches some things about composers and themes they explored, and it’s a delightful afternoon event. The world-class musicians of the Lenape Chamber Ensemble make it fun and enjoyable for kids and their parents alike.

For this one I first sketched a scene in pencil with some springtime animal musicians – rabbits and runner ducks, plus a little hummingbird and some bumblebees. Runners ducks are great characters, they stand tall and much more erect than common ducks, resembling a bowling pin on legs. I added an audience of baby bunnies and chicks, and decided a background of tulips would be appropriate for a March concert.

I then tightened up that sketch, to put some detail in the instruments –

And finally traced that drawing through my lightbox, in ink onto paper and added hatched toning to finish the drawing.

I highly recommend the Lenape Chamber Ensemble concerts, for kids and of course for adults as well! Their whole schedule of concerts is on their website here.

Foxes and Squirrels and the Lenape Chamber Ensemble

Twice a year the Lenape Chamber Ensemble offers a delightful classical music hour for young children, live, with world-class musicians, at DelVal University. I am always happy to draw a fun flyer to advertise the concert, with animals playing musical instruments. For this year’s fall concert I chose foxes as the instrumentalists, with squirrels in the audience, since our area abounds with these little creatures in the autumn.

I have a template for arranging the text so I fill that in and then create a rough pencil sketch around it. I try to show at least one of each instrument mentioned, and if I can, I make some visual reference to some of the music that will be played.–

The musicians that do this children’s concert are world-class artists, and they chat very comfortably with the children that attend. They play snippets of the music that they will perform for adults in evening concerts, and explain moods, themes and music styles to their young audience.

In my drawing process, after my rough sketch I take individual animals and draw them and the instruments more tightly –

One of my favorite parts of the Lenape Chamber Ensemble children’s concerts is at the end, when they often invite the kids to get up and dance in the aisles to show what they feel the music is saying. I caught this photo a few years ago at a concert –

It shows how even very young kids are moved by the delight of classical music.

The last step in my process is to ink in my traced sketches and draw in a background. For this one I added a picture of Bach on the tree trunk since the Brandenburg Concerto is among the pieces to be featured. Then I looked up the city of Brandenburg and made a distant representation of it as it appears on the Havel River in Germany, in the background of this fanciful woodland scene.

I highly recommend the Lenape Chamber ensemble’s children’s concert, it’s a lovely and educational experience for all ages!

Sepia Sketch of Pooh-Bah

A dear friend and delightfully talented gentleman passed away unexpectedly several weeks ago. Wilbur Lewis sang his part brilliantly in our Bucks G&S production of The Mikado, and our society is greatly diminished by his absence. I drew this sketch of him in his Pooh-Bah costume, drawn first in prisma pencil and then painted with sepia ink.

Wilbur lived a rich life, as a husband, father, teacher, writer, and performer – awash in beautiful music and surrounded by thoughtful and eloquent friends. He was gentle and generous and will be ever remembered as such.

My Poster Illustration for Bucks County Gilbert & Sullivan’s ‘The Mikado’

It’s the time of year when singers and musicians from all over Bucks County and the surrounding areas converge to rehearse and perform the unique musical confections that are Gilbert & Sullivan operettas. These musicals are unique in that their utter silliness combines so incomprehensibly well with some of the most lyrical arias and orchestra arrangements anywhere to be found. This season the Bucks County Gilbert & Sullivan Society has chosen to produce what is roundly considered to be their namesakes’ masterpiece, The Mikado. Set in an imaginary imperial Japan, it’s a whimsical, satirical, romantic and thoroughly British story – not to be taken for a tale of Japanese culture, because William Gilbert wrote it to perfectly skewer Victorian society, not the Japanese. And his plot is as improbable as it is enchanting.

I’m happy to have created the poster illustration for this beautiful show. I have always admired Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints, which have influenced Western art for centuries, and I based some of my palette and effects on that school of art, combined with colorful costumes that Bucks G&S already owns for the show.

Gilbert & Sullivan operettas are largely ensemble pieces; there are certainly main characters but part of the joy of the music comes from the chorus singing and reacting to the action in the plot. So I wanted to show many of the play’s characters in my Mikado art. I knew our stage set would include a small red arched bridge, so I researched ukiyo-e prints such as this one below of Shinkyo Bridge by Tsuchiya Koitsu, done in 1937. I thought a parade of people crossing such a bridge would be a fun way to show a lot of character types and costumes. I picked up some coloring and pattern from the traditional prints, also below, but still used my own cartoon style of drawing to project the comedy in the show.

My first pencil sketch was just shapes and gestures, but it roughed out the design. It occurred to me to put the young lovers in the story in a skiff under the bridge, even though this scene does not actually happen in the plot. But they do often hide their romance on the run, and depicting it this way makes a nice little wink against the chase scene of people on the bridge above.

I made rough sketches of many characters –

. . . and somewhere along the line I had the thought of putting our orchestra conductor in the chase scene too. Our orchestra is truly an fundamental part of the full G&S experience because the orchestrations accompanying the songs are incredibly beautiful. We attract about 40 excellent local instrumentalists for our shows, and they are so appreciated by our cast and audiences. So with our conductor in the chase scene I decided to put in a few instrumentalists as well! I think it accentuates the playfulness that’s a hallmark of G&S, and let’s everyone know our goal is to take nothing seriously in this play.

I tightened up the drawing of chosen characters, inked them by hand and scanned them to add digital color to the line drawing, like this

While I vaguely matched costume colors to existing costumes, I simplified my palette as did the ukiyo-e artists and applied colors flat, with no shading. I did the same with the background, working in pieces and then setting them up like my stage:

. . . and finally I put it all together into the finished poster.

Tickets have just gone on sale for Mikado and it should be a beautiful and funny production of this classic, which has been called “the most performed operetta in history.” See here for tickets and here for info on the show and Bucks Gilbert & Sullivan. I highly recommend this Mikado and our cast and orchestra of wonderfully talented characters!

175th Anniversary for a Lovely Church and Congregation

St Paul’s Episcopal Church in Doylestown is holding many festivities this Saturday, April 22, on the occasion of the 175th anniversary of its first service in the church in 1848. The community is invited starting at 1:00 pm to visit this beautiful Gothic Revival church and enjoy the conviviality that I know, firsthand, is the hallmark of St. Paul’s joyful and generous members.

St. Paul’s owes its existence to Mrs. Elizabeth Pawling Ross, who would ride her horse 26 miles from Doylestown into Philadelphia faithfully every month to attend Holy Communion at the Episcopal Church there. She eventually petitioned the diocese to create an Episcopal parish in her hometown of Doylestown, which in the 1840s was little more than a village crossroad between Philadelphia and Easton. I was happy to draw Mrs. Ross for a coloring book that St. Paul’s will have available Saturday for children to color, while their parents are having refreshments or touring the graceful interior of the building.

Starting at 1 pm Saturday, in front of the church if the weather is fine, a brief ceremony including a greeting by our town mayor and a reenactment of the opening of a time capsule from the church’s inception will take place; from there visitors may stroll from docent to docent inside, hearing interesting facts about the history and architecture of St. Paul’s, chatting with uniformed members of the Bucks County Civil War Round Table, enjoying refreshments and a colorful timeline display in the parish hall, seeing the Mercer tiles in the chapel below and even viewing the lovely enclosed columbarium garden. At 5 pm the same day, St. Paul’s excellent choir will sing a choral evensong service, and on Sunday morning at 10 am the rector, Fr. Daniel Moore, will celebrate a traditional Mass using prayers and hymns of the mid-1800s. Everyone is welcome at these events.

I was pleased to design the logo above for St. Paul’s occasion, which is being used on banners and t-shirts and the like for this year of celebration. I did this illustration below a few years back, depicting the church’s Easter Vigil procession.

St. Paul’s is a very charitable church within our community – for decades it has run Christmas in Doylestown, which benefits local shelters, and they now have a small ‘community food pantry’ in front of its steps for anyone in need. At this weekend’s events there will be a spot for donations to help the underserved in the community and the parish will also host a meal for those in need on Sunday, apart from the festivities – a regular occurrence for this generous church, which does not forget its mission even in the midst of its celebrations.

For all events at St. Paul’s, see their website here.

Vivaldi’s ‘The Four Seasons’ – Porcine Version

I have once again dreamed up a humorous setting for the Lenape Chamber Ensemble‘s Children’s Concert, which is coming up Saturday, November 12 at Delaware Valley University. The Lenape Chamber Ensemble is a group of world-class musicians who twice a year host a delightful hour of playful information and performance for kids and their parents, on the weekend when they also perform magnificent concerts for adults at other times and venues. Their talent is sublime, but for their children’s concert I am permitted to draw a light-hearted fantasy of a scene for a poster, just for entertainment’s sake. For this one, I chose pigs as my musicians.

The concert November 12th features the most popular of Vivaldi’s works, The Four Seasons, as well as works by J. S. Bach and Jean-Marie Leclair. I felt a dance ensemble might be fun to accompany my little pigs’ musical performance, so I drew an audience of piglets admiring the dancers representing the seasons, while their accompanists play behind them.

I first sketched pigs in different music & dance positions –

• and then placed them within the space I have on the flyer, hand-lettering the info above and below them. The final poster is below – I also looked up the names the the seasonal movements of the Vivaldi. I’m hoping some enterprising children might learn a little French in the bargain! I highly recommend this concert for kids & parents alike, it’s really a delightful hour of music and fun!