MaRcH MaDdNeSs

I am not quite sure why, but it seems like all of a sudden in the wildlife art world that while January and February are rather quiet... suddenly every possible deadline roles around from the middle of March to the middle of April, making this a rather hectic time of year for me as I scramble to get work done for shows, get my entry forms turned in, figure out what to send to what show!  Eeek!!  Between the Art Association of Northern Colorado, Bennington Art of the Animal Kingdom, International Society of Scratchboard Artists (ISSA), Settlers West Summer Show, Birds In Art (BIA), Colorado Governor's Invitational Exhibition, Society of Animal Artists (SAA) annual exhibition and the Ward Wildlife Art Show (via SAA) I will have 20 works submitted to all these different exhibitions!!!  Most can not overlap due to dates and risk of a work selling (not that I ever mind that problem!).  Some of the shows will only take one work out of two entries (SAA and BIA) and some I may not get juried in to at all, but you can see why us artists must keep a large producing a lot of work in any given year!  This list does not include Women Artists of the West exhibition (May 1 Deadline), The Greeley Stampede Invitational Western Art Show (end of June) and Art for the Sangres Show (end of September)... and I may be forgetting some shows off the top of my head too!

I had to actually create a spreadsheet to keep this all straight!

I decided to color "Bear With Me" and it will be headed to the Colorado Governor's Show at the end of April.  I think the color really brought out his personality.

"Bear With Me" ~ 12"x12" ~ Scratchboard and Ink

Back to work!  I have two works on the go right now - a lion (20"x36") and just started a bighorn sheep (18"x24").  Both are color boards and as a result difficult to photograph as WIP the ink creates a lot of shine until they are varnished.