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!

Poster art for The Sorcerer Musical, opening in July

Every year I design the poster for the Bucks County Gilbert & Sullivan Society’s musical comedy, and last year because of lockdowns we had to postpone the event. I’m happy to say the group is back in business this season and they will produce what would have been last year’s show, since the whole cast wanted to reassemble and perform it – and the show is Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Sorcerer. It will be performed LIVE, with a full live orchestra, on July 16, 17 and 18 in Doylestown. I love the wacky plot of this show, which involves a sorcerer in Victorian England who is asked to create a love potion of which an entire town unwittingly partakes, with chaotic and comic results. It strikes me as typical Gilbert & Sullivan silliness that instead of a cauldron like witches traditionally use to brew potions, this very proper Society Sorcerer’s potion is steeped along with a pot of tea.

I was lucky to be at an early costume fitting for the actor playing the title role, so I took photos of him in costume for reference when drawing, and the prop staff even had the large teapot that will be in the show on hand. I knew the kind of pose I wanted for the figure and started with pencil sketches –

I put some rough color on the sketched figure and placed him on the poster page, with the text that will go around him, and drew in the background roughly with a digital gradation, markers & colored pencils, to get a rough design of the page.

I refined my line drawing of the figure and did more detail on the digital color –

I worked on the title logotype next, to shape it around the sorcerer’s arm & umbrella. I used a fun typeface called “Island of Misfit Toys, ” although I played with the letter shapes a bit, stretching and adding some curls, to give it a consistent feel of whimsy.

I drew the cloud emanating from the teapot digitally and put the figure in place –

and then dropped in the title logotype and added some more magical swashes and particles circling the Sorcerer and the cloud, for the finished art.

The singers and musicians of Bucks Gilbert & Sullivan are busy rehearsing now and are thrilled to be back onstage live, with the full Bucks County Gilbert & Sullivan Orchestra accompanying them. I recommend everyone comes to The Sorcerer, performed at Delaware Valley University in Doylestown, PA, to enjoy this fun show! Tickets are on sale now through Eventbrite HERE. And to enhance the audience’s enjoyment of the show, the group provides interesting background info on the show on the website HERE.

Art in Progress for ‘Pirates of Penzance’

I’m buckling up the buccaneers for the Bucks County Gilbert & Sullivan Society‘s production of “The Pirates of Penzance” in June – here’s a detail of the panoply of characters in one of my all-time favorite shows –

I have yet to paint in the background and then plop it all into place with the information details below it.

This show is an operetta, which means it is mostly sung, but don’t let that put anyone off; it is a VERY funny show, in addition to having magnificent music. (And, my husband does a wonderful turn as the Major-General!) The cast of about 25 singers will be accompanied by the Bucks County Gilbert & Sullivan Orchestra, and the show performs Friday June 14 at 8 pm, Saturday June 15 at 2 and 8 pm and Sunday June 16 at 2 pm. The location is Delaware Valley University, 700 East Butler Avenue, Doylestown, in the Life Sciences Auditorium. Want to buy tickets early and save money over the price of tickets at the door? Just go HERE to order online.

Brochure Design for a Non-Profit

I recently redesigned the season brochure for the Bucks County Gilbert & Sullivan Society’s upcoming 2019 events. Given the outstanding photography by our resident photog Dennis Klöppel, and the excellent acting and colorful costuming our group puts together, it is a very good-looking promotional piece – take a look.

The Society is a wonderful group of friendly and talented amateurs and professionals, and I highly recommend anyone interested to audition for their shows or come and hear the engaging music and delightful wit in every performance. You can keep apprised of upcoming events through their website or liking the group on Facebook.

I am available for design jobs such as this, please contact me through my Contact page on the menu above to chat about your company’s needs.

My Gilbert & Sullivan Artwork

I’ve just completed designing the show program for the Bucks County Gilbert & Sullivan Society’s June production, Trial by Jury and More! This production is a melange of two comic operettas and some magnificent overtures and solos from Gilbert & Sullivan.

I’ve been pleased to paint the poster illustrations for a number of these G&S shows, which I then use on the program cover as well. It’s a pleasure to get to know the witty and comical characters in these operettas – and they are truly operettas, with some dialog but a lot of gloriously operatic sung music. I really recommend these shows for anyone who loves classical music and good theatrical humor.

My illustration for Trial by Jury and More includes the characters Mr. Cox, a hatter, and Mr. Box, a printer, who unwittingly occupy the same rented flat because one works all day and the other all night; they meet unexpectedly and both are furious with their landlord for double-dipping on the rent – until they discover they are, or were, also engaged to the same lady and neither wants to fulfill that contractual obligation! Also depicted in this cover are characters from Trial by Jury: Angelina, the tragicomically jilted bride, and the Judge, who is instantly smitten with her. Together these 1-act shows make up the operatic musical comedy Trial by Jury and More!  and it is set to open in two weeks, on Friday June 16 here in Doylestown – all info is on the website here.

With my art for HMS Pinafore I shoehorned the main characters into a tiny rowboat for comic effect: the gallant sailor Ralph Rackstraw kissing lovely Josephine and Captain Corcoran carrying his sunny Buttercup, with ornery Dick Deadeye paddling them through the waves and Sir Joseph admonishing them all to be quite polite. My husband played Sir Joseph in this show locally, and friends may see the resemblance in my rendering of him.

For Princess Ida I stood our stalwart princess front and center, and in the background her bastion for women, Castle Adamant. If you look closely you can see the brave fellows clumsily scaling the castle battlements – Hilarion, Cyril and Florian – who engage the theme of this battle-of-the-sexes play. For some elements of Castle Adamant I was inspired by the design of Marie Antoinette’s Hameau de la Reine, and you may notice I incorporated male-female symbols into the castle windows.

For the Patience illustration I painted sweet, sensible milkmaid Patience listening skeptically to the florid words of poet Bunthorne. (I enjoy that G&S often chose hilariously Dickensian character names.) Meanwhile the lovesick maidens of the village cling and swoon on Bunthorne, with even Lady Jane and her cello getting drawn into the undertow. There’s a lovely small magnolia tree in my neighborhood that I used for reference in the Patience art.

In all these illustrations I painted with acrylic paint on illustration board. If you’d like to see my sketches leading up to these paintings, I wrote about my process – Trial by Jury here, Pinafore here, Princess Ida here and Patience here. Leasing of my artwork for other productions is available, and inquiries can be made through my Contact page.

 

Pinafore in Albion

I was charmed to receive the poster for Bicester Choral & Operatic Society’s performance of HMS Pinafore, for which they leased my artwork:

I wrote a bit about painting this piece in a past blog post here.

The BCOS did a splendid job with the design. It’s gratifying to know my work was seen in merry England for such a merry show!