I’m honored that my bison scratchboard drawing was one of 25 selected for the Customer Art section of Cheap Joe’s 2014 art supply catalog. Click on the image for a larger version. That’s the leg of our dog Arrow in the photo – he’s such a good helper.
I know there’s a HUGE gap in posts since the last one. Chalk that up to the fact that I’ve been working on overhauling my web site for a looooong time. I plan to write posts and back-date them to create a time-line of significant events. Stay tuned.
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This is a series of 15 scratchboard drawings I created for a show at the Chapel Gallery as part of the “Art Can Heal” program in the Sutter Auburn Faith Hospital in Auburn CA.
13 of the boards are 5 x 7, framed to 8 x 10. Two of the boards are 6 x 6, framed to 8 x 8. Each board is sealed with 4 coats of varnish, mounted on a black board and in a black wood frame without glass.
See in-progress images in my Down on the Farm album on Facebook and read more about the show and creation process in this blog post.
Most of these pieces have sold. Please visit my “Available Art” album to see the drawings still available.
The art is available on cards and a few other items in my Zazzle shop. Find prints on Fine Art America.
I received confirmation on March 21st that my application for “Signature” status (SSA) in the International Society of Scratchboard Artists (ISSA) was unanimously accepted. This status is awarded to ISSA “members showing advanced scratchboard skills” and I’m thrilled and honored to have been approved. This means that I can now add “SSA” after my signature on scratchboard works.
Read more in this blog post.
See the post about my scratchboard work in Ampersand Art Supply’s blog.
Late last year, I saw a call for artists on Chako’s Facebook page. They were looking for someone to do a few simple drawings of dogs for a publication and they had a short turnaround time. I support Chako and their advocacy efforts on behalf of pit bulls, so I contacted them to find out what they needed.
They liked my idea of simple line drawings and sent descriptions of what they wanted and some reference photos. Along with some of my own photos and those of a friend who volunteers at Placer SPCA, I had what I needed to create this series of drawings illustrating “Dog-to-Dog Introductions” for Chako’s publication.
These are all hand-drawn with a black Micron pen on paper. I scanned the drawings, cleaned up the digital files and e-mailed them to Chako. There were a couple of minor changes to two of the drawings. I drew the changed parts on a separate piece of paper, scanned those and integrated them into the original scanned drawings.
Some time ago, while teaching a scratchboard class, I realized that “art is an illusion”. I’m certain that this is something I have always known at a subconscious level, but the actual words came to me during that class. It just clicked that we were not drawing dogs, cats, flowers or whatever, but we were making marks on a board that represented these subjects.
My latest drawing of Arabian mare Tani Tabriz (“Breezy”) is a good example of this concept. It’s not a real horse, it’s not a photo, it’s pencil marks and shading arranged to look like a horse. Granted, it takes a level of skill and understanding of the process to know where to put the marks and how to apply them. It also requires a knowledge of the subject (an awareness of the physical structure) to understand how the light and dark areas work together to accurately create the illusion of shape and depth.
“Tani Tabriz”, 7″ x 7″, Graphite Pencil on Stonehenge Paper
When I start a drawing or painting, I take the reference photo, scale it to the size of the finished piece and transfer the basic outlines & shapes to my paper or board. Some might say “that’s cheating”, but I see it as a shortcut that saves me time so I can get to the “meat” of the drawing or painting. I won’t launch into the full discussion of that here (as I do when I teach classes), but what I find interesting about art is that I could give that transferred image to 10 different artists and there would be 10 different results. Each artist has their own way of interpreting what they see and their own method of recreating it. Each artist has to make judgment calls on what to include or leave out in order to get the effect they want.
Look at the details of Breezy’s eye & muzzle regions. Instead of seeing these areas as an eye and nose, see them as a number of shapes/shaded areas. Circles, lines, wedges and arcs of different values come together to create the illusion of an eye, nostril, cheek, vein, bony ridge, etc.
Well, that’s my little discussion of the illusion of art. Feel free to comment with your thoughts.
Below is the reference photo of Breezy (in color & greyscale). If you’d like to see scans of earlier stages of the drawing, click here for a previous blog post.
I converted the color photo to greyscale, increased the contrast and lightened it a bit.
Nothing really new to report, but I’ve been plugging away on a number of drawings, so I thought I’d post three of them that are in progress. The first two are farther along than last time I posted them on the blog.
This one is a pencil portrait of Breezy, the Arab mare:
Here’s an earlier stage of the drawing:
The drawing is approximately 7″ x 7″ in pencil on Stonehenge paper.
This portrait of Brogan, an Irish Wolfhound, is mixed media (ink, watercolor & eventually, color pencil) on Aquabord. The board is 9″ x 12″, which makes the image area approx. 8″ x 10″.
This stage is watercolor, applied fairly loosely to block in the basic areas of color. The darkest areas (black) were drawn with India ink.
Here I’ve added some more detail with watercolor
Here I’ve scratched in detail and fur texture with an X-Acto knife (#11 blade). The next step will be to come back in with watercolor applied more carefully than in the first two steps.
The last one is a drawing of a German Shepherd pup on black scratchboard (Ampersand Scratchbord). This is not a commission, just one I’m doing because I want to work on the black scratchboard surface. I haven’t done many illustrations on this surface. I’ve been hanging out in the Scratchboard Forum of WetCanvas lately, and there’s some jaw-dropping work on the black boards in that group.
This is a 5″ x 7″ board. All I’ve done so far is scratch with an X-Acto knife. Once I have all the scratching completed, I’ll come back in with ink as needed for detail.
I have two new non-commissioned drawings to share. Below each image is a link to contact me if you’re interested in either drawing.
The first is “Boston Style” an ink on Claybord (scratchboard) drawing of a Boston Terrier.
“Boston Style”, 5″ x 5″, Ink on Ampersand Claybord
This is the reference photo:
And a detail of the portrait:
And here’s a WIP (work in progress) video of the steps in creating the drawing:
The second drawing is an ink on Stampbord (scratchboard) painting of a baby cottontail rabbit.
2.5″ x 3.5″, Mixed Media on Ampersand Stampbord
This drawing has sold, but you can find baby cottontail merchandise (cards, postage, iPad case and more) in my Zazzle shop.
Here’s a detail:
I didn’t make a WIP video of this one, but I did make an animated GIF:
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Materials used:
For “Boston Style”
Ampersand Claybord
India Ink
Technical Pen
X-Acto Knife with #16 Blade
For Baby Cottontail
Ampersand Stampbord – As best I can tell, Stampbord is exactly the same surface as Claybord, but it comes in small sizes and is marketed to the rubber stamp-using crowd.
India Ink
Technical Pen
Daniel Smith Watercolors
Prismacolor Colored Pencils
X-Acto Knife with #16 Blade
