Thursday, April 29, 2010

Boycotting F&W Art competitions

A fellow artist recently pointed out to me that F&W have a clause in their competition contracts that makes an artist give rights to F&W to do whatever they want with your artwork images!  I have written them a letter and encourage other artists to do the same asking them to let us keep our rights and change the wording on their contract!  Below is my letter.

F&W runs the following art publications: "The Artist Magazine", "Southwest Art", "The Pastel Journal" and "Watercolor Artist".  ALL of these magazines hold contests and all of them make you sign this same contract giving up your rights!


Dear F&W-

I was recently going to enter two of your contests (The Artist Magazine and Strokes of Genius 3) with my artwork and just as I am getting ready to hit submit I scroll through your contract and see the line at the end that reads "I hereby grant the Sponsoring Organization the perpetual, non-exclusive, world-wide right to publish, republish and repurpose my artwork in both print and digital formats, including, but not limited to books, promotion materials, websites, databases and as part of downloadable digital products." perpetual, non-exclusive, world-wide right ... to you! Where are the artists rights? So you can sell t-shirts, mugs, prints of MY artwork if you should want to? I think not!! I urge you to strongly consider rewording this clause to grant you the rights to publish the work and use it on web sites and for advertising, but please remove the extreme wording that makes me give away all of my rights!!

I encourage you to reword it to include terms similar to those found on the Best Of Artists competition which reads "All participating artists retain full copyrights of their images. By submitting your images and entry form you grant Kennedy Promotions LLC the right to publish images of your artwork in print within the Best Of Books and on the Internet within BOAA and the Visual Art Guide for the purposes of promoting your artwork and will not hold Kennedy Promotions liable for any infringement of your copyright." This is a nice clean clause that I would be happy to agree to, but until the wording on your entry forms is changed and does not grant "perpetual, non-exclusive, world-wide right " to F&W I will never enter another one of your contests. And maybe I am just one artist (though you would have been getting over $100 on my entries alone), however I will be encouraging other artists (of which I know MANY) to NOT enter your contests as well until this has changed.

There is no need for the wording that you have in your contract if your intentions are only to use the images for publication, advertising and web sites. Please change them so that I can feel comfortable entering your contests again.

Regards-

Cathy Sheeter
www.aphelionart.com

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Tailwind Completed

I am calling this one done, though have not sprayed it yet with fixative.  I have done some research and found out the name of the horse in the photo and it is Circle Bar Pistol, an AQHA stallion.  I photographed him at the AQHA Ranch Horse Versatility competition in Denver in January.  I am contemplating contacting his owners and sharing the work with them.  My piece from a few months ago titled "Distant Gaze" is of another stallion from the same event by the name of Chic Packin.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Finishing an Older One

A few of you may remember this piece from a few months ago...  Anyways I finally finished it up and sprayed it.  I couldn't decide about the tail... added it in, scratched it back out, added it in again :)  Finally decided I liked it better with a tail than without.  It is just 10"x8" colored with inks.  I also added the subtle background elements to complete the piece.

A wee little bear and Tailwind progress

This past Saturday I taught my 3rd workshop... the weather outside was frightful, but the scratching indoors delightful :)  I started this little bitty 5"x3" board at the workshop as a demo and finished it at home.  He was just for fun.




















I have made a bit more progress on my horse and rider as well over the weekend and today and have decided on the title of "Tailwind" for the piece.  I am getting close to done, but still more touch ups to do.  Not very good photos due to glare today.



A close up where the reins meet the mane and the mane meets the body - all textures have to differ for it to read right to the eye.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Better Photo

Here is a better photo of the Mountain Lion



And more progress on the horse

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Walking The Line - almost done

close to done with the big couger.  Not a good photo, but you get the general idea :)




And a bit more on the horse too

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Art Fair Weekend and New progress on works

Last weekend was my first art fair of the season.  Unfortunately attendance was quite low and sales were low as well.  I did get to educate more people about scratchboard and still enjoyed the time I spent there.  I found some time to work on my spinning grey horse and made friends with my neighboring booths (a photographer and a glass worker).

Here is where the horse ended the weekend















And last week I started to color Charlie, the big mountain lion.  Putting that first bit of color on it was difficult as I have spent MANY hours on the board already and color is something that doesn't always go the way that I want it to.  Anyways I have already spent another 8 + hours laying in ink, rescratching, putting in more ink, more rescratching... and it is getting closer to me ding pleased with the color version of it.  I am finding it quite difficult to get a decent photo of it as it has many layers of ink now and some show through as quite shiny and reflective giving quite a glare.... so excuse the poor photos, but here is the progression of color work on it so far.  Still many hours to go.

First layers of ink with minimal rescratching at this point



















Now a version with quite a bit of rescratching to lighten things up for more inking




















And several more layers of ink and scratching to get to where it is at the time of typing.  You will also notice changes to the musculature of his shoulder, as I didn't like the way I had it

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Twirling... slowly

A wee bit more done on this piece.  This piece holds some new challenges for me that are going to take some figuring out on how to do them.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

My Birds will be flying To Vermont!

I am excited to say that two of my works were selected for the 2010 Bennington Center for the Arts "Art of the Animal Kingdom" Exhibition that will open in June.  This is my first year entering this show, so I am delighted to have work selected.  I am planning on attending the opening and have never been to Vermont, so also looking forward to exploring the area and trying to find some local wildlife.

The two works that will be going are:

"Blue And Gold" (20"x14" - scratchboard and ink)


















Mantling Golden Eagle (16"x19" - scratchboard)














I also recently submitted my work for the Society of Animal Artists show (it is their 50th anniversary), Birds In Art, and the Coors Western Art Show- keep your fingers crossed for me!  All three could be tough to get into this year!

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Another mane event

The piece I started this week will also have his mane as a key component to the piece.  You'll have to wait until next week to see more though.

Monday, April 5, 2010

A Driving Force - Finished

My friesian piece is completed.

"A Driving Force"
10"x8"



















Prints should be available soon.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Trotting along

This mornings update from the Friesian- you can see how I am working the upper muzzle area in fur even though much will be covered over with the mane.



And now this afternoon/evenings update- the last for the day.  I think I have picked out a title and am going to call him "A Driving Force"