Henry VI Part 2: She Wolf of France

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The first pass at the Orlando Shakespeare Theater poster for Henry VI Part 2: She Wolf of France by William Shakespeare focused on a female soldier and a white wolf howling in the woods. This was once again a play about the War of the Roses, so I included a white and red rose. I love painting roses, they are elegant and beautiful. Having worked on Mulan I have followed a story of a woman stepping onto the battlefield in a patriarchal society. She would have to be more of a warrior than any of the men.

I didn’t have to think about the Henry VI title treatment since I could lift it from the previous poster for consistency. It works. The expression was working but the pose itself felt static. I wanted something more chiseled and heroic. The crown fitting over the chain mail hood is something I found while researching. I imagine they must have designed a specific crown for that purpose. Visually when drawn it isn’t quite believable. I think it will need to fit more snug to the skull to work. To show the warrior was female I needed some long hair visible. I had it blow out form under the chain mail hood and into her face. This wasn’t an appealing or attractive choice but it hinted at the disheveled chaos of battle.

I started looking at heroic statues of warriors to figure out what else was needed to make the figure bolder. Straight lines would read better than the soft curves I was using in this rough sketch. I went back to the drawing board and I am pretty sure I submitted two passes of the idea at the first approval meeting. It is always good to have multiple versions of an idea or better yet multiple concepts to explore. I was following one path, but I was sure it needed improvement. That is what is so good about showing work in progress, people always have suggestions that send me down a new path and that is always exciting.

Henry VI Part 2: The She Wolf of France by William Shakespeare ran from January 8-19, 2025.

Becoming Othello: First Pass

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The first pass at creating a poster for Becoming Othello for the Orlando Shakespeare Theater involved a simple split screen portrait. On the left the actress smiles in a warm inviting portrait and on the right she is depicted in a severe cold portrait as the murderous Othello. Debra Ann Byrd is a female actress who embraces playing the male lead in Shakespeare’s Othello. This play is about that journey. Debra wrote and performed this solo show.

Othello is a noble Moorish general whose life is destroyed by his ensign, Lago, who manipulates him into believing his wife, Desdemona, is unfaithful. Consumed by jealous rage, Othello murders Desdemona, only to learn of Iago’s deception. Consumed with grief Othello then commits suicide.

With such a dark story line, my portrait poster lacked any discernible action. I liked the classy serif typeface I had picked for the title but that might miss the mark as well for such a bold dark story line. This poser image left me feeling uneasy. I think it has to do with her smile on one side and serious neutral expression on the other. Perhaps a neutral expression across the board would have worked better but now is not the time for second guessing since this concept was not approved. The challenge was in making the two sides of the portrait the same yet dissimilar. It was a fine line to walk.

Since a verb would be needed, my mind turned to the moment of murderous rage in the play. That moment would end two lives in a pointless tragedy. If that moment could be captured then that would catch a viewer’s attention.

Venus in Fur: Second Pass

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For my second pass at the Venus in Fur poster, I decided to focus on the tight shiny leather glove as the dominatrix raised a finger to her lips to insist on silence. I imagined her saying Shhhh. I was thinking of a woman who might say, “Hey, I’m up here.” Meaning the guy is not looking where he should. Anyway, she is scolding the director.

I also did not know who would be cast as Vanda. I just needed to see her lips, so I avoided painting her nose on upwards. I case Vanda with flowing blonde hair and bright red lipstick. Most people would be looking at the outline of her tight black lace bra and her cleavage. That hidden valley punctuated by a small black bow was the star of the poster.

When John Singer Sargent painted a bare shoulder in his 1884 portrait, of Madame X, there was a major uproar in the Paris Salon. It was considered indecent, immoral, and a “slap in the face” to Parisian social standards. I had done a life sized copy of that Madam X painting for a New York City theater stage production so that painting was certainly on my mind.

In this poster I had one shoulder covered in rich black fur and the other was bare with the necessary strap to hold the black lace bra in place. Were that strap to slip, and it is dangerously close to doing so, then gravity would cause a wardrobe malfunction. I made sure to keep the bra strap in place so as not to upset Orlando High Society.

Anyway this concept hit the mark for a play about domination and masochism. I had darkened the flesh of the face so it receded into the darkness a bit, but the chest was painted a bright pasty white. I know that a viewer’s gaze will go to the brightest highlights and in this case that has to be the breasts.

In the approval meeting there was some discussion and concern because no one knew who might be cast as Vanda. At the Shakes any actress could get the part in the auditions. She could be any nationality or skin color. They were not looking specifically for a fair skinned blonde. She might be brunette. I had to show the actress and certainly I had to show plenty of flesh. It seemed like an impossible catch 22 conundrum. I needed to give it thought back at the studio and find some solution. I wasn’t sure a solution existed and I felt that this version of the poster was hitting the mark. I might have to paint the tools of the trade, like whips and other leather goods but I liked this in-your-face sexuality. Just don’t look her in the eyes. The flesh in this painting still needed some loving touches but I left it as it is to embrace change.

3 Little Pigs First Pass

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The first pass at The 3 Little Pigs poster for the Orlando Shakes kept with my usual approach of depicting the characters with realism. I only put one pig in the courtroom at the time. So what happened to the two other pigs? Chances are that they had already been devoured. The one pig remaining would be the one with the brick house.I like little baby pig ears, they are large and look like they belong on bats.

The wolf looked like your average wolf in a green pinstriped suit. Notes I received helped immensely to push the poster in a fun direction. I was advised to look at The Grinch Who Stole Christmas and look a the Grinch’s sneer. He had an amazing sneer that would curl infinitely. Chuck Jones is the director of that film and he has an amazing knack to draw characters with appeal and tons of emotion. In the shorts he directed he would personally draw many of the key poses of the characters to get the animators started. He knew exactly what he wanted.

I would of course need two more pigs and they should also not be as realistic. They needed to be angry or scared depending on their character. In the Disney animated short each of the pigs had a definite personality. That film came before Snow white and the 7 Dwarfs and I believe the level of thought that went into giving each pig a personality late translated into the clear personalities given to each dwarf.

The type face I had picked for the title was also rather plain and not very playful. That would also require some major rethinking. There was a whole lot of type that needed to go on this poster with all the credits and the tag line, so the vertical image would be more like a square image after the type was in place. I figured I should embrace that and add bars of color to isolate the text from the courtroom scene.

I incorporated a red jury box and red witness stand. They have subtly different wood treatments. I don’t know if any one seeing the poster would notice that. I would keep many elements like the pointing fingers, the green suit and jury box but everything else needed a facelift to make it more playful. The wolf had literally no expression other than hunger I suppose. He needed a dose of anthropomorphism.

I still didn’t want a flat 2d animation look. I needed a mix of playful expressiveness and realism. This pass had far to much of the latter. Back to the drawing board, or in this case, iPad.

The Comedy of Errors Final Poster

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The final version of the Comedy of Errors poster for the Orlando Shakes mostly addressed subtle changes to the upper half of the poster. A catch phrase was added which I incorporated in a flowing scroll below the new title treatment.

The woman with the gossamer wings was moved down into the parade crowd. She replaced one of the twin brothers and I added a few more costumed revelers in the parade. In the night sky I added warm glowing embers that could be interpreted as stars of the flaming embers of an exploded firework falling to the ground.  Many of my poster images incorporate some glowing elements. Once some magical light effect is in the scene I start to feel satisfied.

Most of the parade remained unchanged, I just kept working on subtle details while keeping some spontaneity. There was some talk of adding the waterfront at the end of the street, but that would have pulled visual interest away from the parade. I kept the grey city buildings at the end of the street to cut off any further depth to the scene.

The new type treatment was very similar to the type I was seeing on many Mardi Gras posters and flyers. I like how William Shakespear’s name fit below errors with the E and S book ending his name. This was a fun poster to pull together. I didn’t have a chance to sketch the production of the show. I would have liked to see this marriage of Shakespeare’s play and Mardi Gras. It must have been a fun show that would have been magnificent to sketch.

This production was in 2023. It feels like I worked on the poster yesterday. I have been updating the portfolio on this website, so I am going through all the past work I have done to populate different categories on the website. I have been adding artwork to the Theater Posters category and discovered I never wrote about these posters at the time. When I find that I didn’t discuss the process at the time, I am going in and doing it today so I can add the art to the portfolio.

Comedy of Errors First Pass

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In designing the 2023 Orlando Shakes poster for Comedy of Errors, I started with a kaleidoscopic idea that featured two sets of twins. In the Shakespeare comedy identities get mixes as two sets of twins fall in love. It is a comedy that stresses how ephemeral love is and how blind. I was looking a tons of reference from Mardi Gras since the Shakespeare play was to be staged in New Orleans. My idea involved perfect symmetry which is something digital painting is quite good at. In the background I placed abstractions from intricate Mardi Gras parade floats. The only thing that broke the symmetry were the two men in the background both holding yellow umbrellas. The title treatment was kept bold with offset lettering to imply comedy.

This was just one of the ideas pitched for the poster. Ultimately everyone leaned towards a street parade scene since it had more action and a large cast of characters. Purple and yellow became the complimentary colors that dominated all of my initial concept sketches. I was doing concept sketches at full size. I honestly feel it is just as easy to paint a concept rather than to do a pencil sketch which  can be harder to interpret. I like throwing line and color at the page right from the start. I know everything can change and likely will so the stakes are not high.

I just gave a quick presentation for the Orlando board that showed the process behind 10 of the theater posters. I realize now that should be a sub category in my portfolio. Some people probably think that one image is created and accepted but the process if far more collaborative allowing an idea to evolve and grow just as any stage production evolves with many rehearsals. My first pass at a poster is seldom the one that will get accepted. My first pass is just a sloppy attempt to catch the fish. Once the fist is caught, then the more interesting and intricate ideas can work their way into the process.

Orlando Shakes Board Meeting

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Jim Helsinger, the Artistic Director at the Orlando Shakes (812 E. Rollins St., Orlando, FL), invited me to give a brief 10-minute presentation at the Orlando Shakes Board meeting that showed some of the creative process involved in each season’s posters. It was exciting to share a bit of the creative chaos that transpires every season.

I prepared 10 slides (JPGs) that showed all of the versions of each poster that were used as the concept for each poster evolved. Some slides had just 4 versions of the poster while others had up to 10 different concepts.

The meeting was tightly packed with budgeting and marketing presentations, so I didn’t want to run overtime. With the 10 slides I had just 1 minutes to discuss each poster evolution. This is something I do here on Analog Artist Digital World each season anyway. I show all the ideas that didn’t work, before showing the final poster concept.

With Stuart Little I pointed out that the first pass at the poster was just something to get the conversation started. I did another version with Stuart in the port hole of a boat and then one with the cat dominating the scene. When the cat was pushed further into the background the concept allowed Stuart to take center stage.

With Hound of the Baskervilles the challenge was to make it clear that the show was a comedy. I first pass was quite dark with a huge demonic dog hidden in the trees while a silhouette of Sherlock was looking through his magnifying glass. A second pass had Watson and Sherlock seated in the same forest. I realized that Watson has a bigger role in the mystery than Sherlock. I put another dog in a golden frame. That dog was once again too dark and menacing. When I replaced him with a smiling rottweiler and had Watson looking through the magnifying glass with a huge magnifying glass and Sherlock looking quite perplexed. The comedic aspect seemed clear to me.

With Fat Ham I just had to switch from the nightclub dance mode I adopted in the first tow passes at the poster and instead focus on the picnic in the backyard. With Shakespeare’s As You like It I tried about 10 different concepts before settling in on female lips and a mustache. I had seen an image of a lipstick kissed onto a sheep of paper and to me that pattern looked like trees in a forest. It is an abstract though that came after many far more literal passed at the poster design.

With Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors there were tons of passes at the poster because I had worked on it for two seasons. Concepts started with a full cast and over time the challenge became figuring out how to depict a vampire smiling. Any time a vampire smiles it doesn’t come off as comedic, it comes off as menacing. Clattering toy teeth were an obvious work around to let people know this was a comedy.

Come From Away also had many passes before setting on a final poster image. It is about planes being diverted to land in Nova Scotia after the 9-11 attacks in NYC. Many of the early designs had multiple airplanes lined up on the runway. But that isn’t what the show is about. It is about how people come together for one another in an emergency. The challenge was how to depict a welcoming community. Orlando came together to embrace love and strength after the Pulse Nightclub massacre.  The concept that worked showed multiple hands creating a heart shape with a bright sunrise glowing in that heart shape. I had seen this symbol of the heart so often after Pulse, and I finally embraced it for the poster concept.

Richard III was a rare case where I did four concept and one hit the mark perfectly. In that poster, Richard’s hand rises from inside a crown and it scratches three bloody trails onto a white wall.

With A Christmas Carol I got to point out how I had created a poster design for the show 4 different times. This time I resisted showing a large cast and instead just focused on Scrooge walking down a dark London street while it snowed. That simple image allows the viewer to decide who Scrooge might be on that dark evening walk.

With the Children’s show Corduroy, I sketched a Teddy bear sitting on a shelf. He seemed sad, which he was since he had been abandoned there for so long. The show, however, is very finny and comical. The poster needed a verb. I did two passes with a girl hugging the bear, one was realistic and the other cartoony. In the end the concept that got accepted showed Corduroy reaching for a button which had popped off of his green overalls. That button was his quest for the entirety of the show. He wanted to look good to the little girl would return and bring him home.

Last I got to share a sketch of the recent production of Henry VI: The Rise of Richard which I had done on location in the theater. I have been doing a location sketch like this every day since January 1, 2009. Of course I sketched the board meeting itself. I only had an hour while subtracting my presentation time. I had to work fast. The sketch is rushed and not as complete as other sketches I have done, but it isn’t the worst thing I have ever done, so I accept what it is and move on to the next.

Henry VI Part 3: The Rise of Richard, First Pass

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With the Henry VI Part 3: The Rise of Richard  poster I did for the Orlando Shakes, I had an advantage in that the actor for Richard, Mark McClain Wilson, would likely reprise the roll in the next season. For once I knew who to paint for the poster. The Shakes was kind enough to supply reference of Mark from a previous production.

The main thing I knew was that there would be multiple battles for the crown. I researched battle uniforms of the 1450’s period and chose these thick tan tunics with the crosses on them. Well the crosses were really off mark. This was not a show about a holy war. The costume would have to change.

The Bare Bard Series which started in 2019 with Richard II and continued through Henry IV Part 1, Henry VI Part 2, and Henry V as well as Henry IV Part 1, Henry IV Part 2 and Herny V in 2003. Then the pandemic slowed down the series for a bit. The War of the Roses revived the series followed by Henry VI Part 1; Joan of Arc, Henry VI Part 2: She Wolf of France and now Henry VI Part 3: The Rise of Richard. Next season Richard III: The Bottled Spider completes the series.

An usher in the theater was saying she was surprised that there were so many shows in the War of The Roses series. She thought there was only 1. She asked if I had seen any of the other shows, and I have been along for the whole Fire and Reign series illustrating and learning new history of royal conquests.

What is unique about these shows is that there is no director, the actors block out the scenes themselves as they rehearse much as they did back in Shakespeare’s day. They also go into the costume shop to pick out their own costume for the show. Some costumes feel like they are from the 1450’s period, but others might be more modern in flavor. It all depends on how the actor decides they should look on stage. In a past show, Mark McClain Wilson had chosen a hip leather jacket to wear. Since that reflected his taste, it was suggested that I should depict him in leather.

The crown changed hands many times in this show. A complicated family tree in the program was the best way to figure out who was part of the house of York and who was part of the House of Lancaster. The House of York was represented by a white rose and house of Lancaster was represented by a red rose. I have painted many roses over that past several years.

Audience members were given a passport book in which they could paste the stickers that are handed out for each show. I don’t use the passport book. Instead, I place the stickers on my sketchbook cover which makes finding a particular show sketch very easy when I go through the sketchbook archives.

For this show I was given a red rose sticker, but secretly I was rooting for the despotic and twisted Richard who wears the white rose.

Henry VI Part 3: The Rise of Richard is now playing at the Shakes through April 19, 2026. I had a great time. Grab your tickets today!

The Hound of the Baskervilles: Final Poster

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For the final Orlando Shakespeare Theater poster for the Hound of the Baskervilles, I kept the seated poses for Watson and Sherlock Holmes. In the Hound of the Baskervilles, Watson actually plays a much larger role than Holmes since he goes to the Baskerville estate to investigate alone. It is a chance to see him use his powers of deduction, but he is as swept up in the legend of the huge hound as the townspeople.

Through the mystery and intrigue Sherlock was actually investigating from afar. The Hound of the Baskervilles has been adapted so many times for movies and theater production that it is a perfect fit for a comedic farce. Most people are well aware of the story. It was required reading for me in high school.

mangling, murder and mayhem can be extremely funny when resented with tongue in cheek. In this production actors hod ornate picture frames to portray the historic Baskerville family lineage. I always love paintings that come alive, by expressing emotion.

If you get a chance to see this production, I would highly advise it. It should be laugh out loud funny.

The Hound of the Baskervilles: Third Pass

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Each time I work on a poster the image evolves. Changes are all part of the artistic process. The first pass at the poser was rather menacing. I decided with this pass to hav Sherlock and Watson sitting in easy chairs contemplating the mystery they had to solve. I gave Sherlock a quizzical look as if he were one step away from solving the crime. Watson on the other hand just looks a bit flummoxed.

I kept the misty forest in the painting of the hound between them. I considered putting them in Sherlock’s apartment but decided they too needed to be seated in the forest. I later changed my idea about the setting. The dog is rather lanky and sinister still. I remembered that picture frames played a role in the stage production, so framing the hound made sense to me.

The feedback I got to this pass was as expected. There wasn’t enough information to let the audience know they were going to see a comedy. I needed to push the expressions more for comedic effect and the hound was still too scary. I needed to push for a little more Scooby doo without getting cartoony. The new creative challenges kept the poster evolving.

Having seen a staging of a similar production, I a say that you will have a blast if you go to see this show. I was laughing out loud as I sketched.