working the background

More background is being added.  It is primarily being created with the fiberglass brush for the foreground plants and a nail buffer for the stalks in the background.  Diluted ink is added to help push the elements 'back' so that they are not too bright and do not distract from the tiger.

And more...

The depth of fur that you see on the body is created with a comination of a scalpel blade done in somewhat randome directions, followed up with a light touch with the ultrafine fiberglass brush to soften the lines.  By  leaving some lines darker it looks like the fur has clumped together.

Developing the foreground brush

More Rustling...

New Piece - A Rustle In The Brush

 A new tiger piece I started on Wednesday.  This piece will have a moderate amount of folliage and environment to go with it.

Sometimes when you open the box...

...you find good things!  Today I finally got around to opening my box that I got back from LSU Animals In art Show a couple of weeks ago.  As I am  unpack my piece,  "Shaking It Up", out comes an envelope as well.  Inside the envelop are two articles printed in local newspapers during the show (one that my piece is mentioned in) and also a People's Choice Award ribbon!  Woo Hoo!  It turned around a day that started out not very good and put me in a much better mood. 

My list of awards still astounds me; that my work can win awards so consistently under so many different judges is well... amazing.  With this win, this year I have won awards in every show I have entered.

To Black and White

I feel like I should write an ode to black and white art with that title, but in this case I actually mean completed to black and white. My bear that I have titled "Patience Is A Virtue" has been completed to black and white.  It will be colored at a scratchboard symposium in Indianapolis in July as part of a demonstration I will be giving.

Bear-ling along

I have spent several hours for the past few days working on my bear.  She is about 2/3 done to the black and white version (have to finish her muzzle, the rock in the lower corner and the leg that is resting on the rock).  I will be taking her along with me to a scratchboard workshop on July and using the piece as a demonstration on coloring black boards.

For now I am calling it Bear Prayer, but she looks more contemplative than praying to me.

Bear

I started this grizzly bear sow on Wednesday.  Size is 12"x12"

Arabian Night completed

Simple and effective, at least that is my goal :)  I like it when I can let the black do some of the work for me and let the viewers eye fill in details in the shadow.

Detail look at the scratchwork on the piece

Scratch by scratch

I got a couple more hours of work in on the Arabian horse last night. 

Arabian Night

I started a new piece about 3 days ago that I am tentatively calling "Arabian Night"  It is from a photo that I took a couple of weeks ago during a photo shoot of two Arabian Stallions.  The photo in and of itself is not really all that spectacular, but I liked the light in his eye.  With a bit of photoshop to add drama and contrast I decided it would make a nice board.  Size will be 18"x36" which ends up being pretty close to life size with this crop.  It has been progressing quite quickly so far.

Spraying - ARG!

If there are two things I hate doing in my art one is framing (I always get dog hair in it!) and the other is spraying my work with fixative (I always seem to get dog hair in it!!)  Spraying for me is far more nerve racking than actually creating the work.  I know of many disasters from spray fixative that has gone bad, drips, runs, crystallizes, turns cloudy, ink sluffs off, etc. either during the spraying of as it dries.  Sometimes it has been with brand new cans and other times with cans that have been used with no problems before.  I have had some issues myself when I sprayed a piece outside in winter - the spray literally froze before it hit the artwork and it looked like my cheetah was in a snowstorm!  Fortunately I was able to fix the piece by spraying again in a warmer environment.  So when it comes to spraying big works like "Walking The Line" I have to hold my breath and cross my fingers and toes that everything goes well.  Then I ALWAYS get dust and tiny particulates in it.  It seems inevitable!  If I only did 8"x10" pieces I would breath a lot easier, but the larger the work, the more stuff gets into it.

Anyways I sprayed "Walking the Line" and "Tailwind" today and knock on wood everything seems to have gone ok (except the dust issue, which I have yet to ever avoid).  Both of these pieces will be going to the framers tomorrow in preparation for Greeley Stampede.

I can't seem to get my camera to pick up the background elements when it exposes the image, so by overexposing a shot just to show how much of the background isn't showing up (excuse the glare on the right side too)

Small donation to Greeley Stampede

My little bear that was posted below will be donated to the Greeley Stampede Western Art Show's quick auction.  The funds that are raised will go to thier scholarship funds.  The auction will be on June 23 at the opening for their art show.  I did add some minor changes since this image including a signature, but didn't take a photo.

after a bit of a break

I had a nice visit with my friend Lee in Salt Lake City last week, so no update on the blog, but now I am home and have 5 million photos to review (of dogs).  I am happy to say that I got a reply from F&W telling me they will look into rewording the contest contracts in future years, as other artists have also complained. 

Here are some pictures of my girls from the trip - and even a photo of me with them taken by Lee. 

In more related art news I am excited to say that my piece "The Interrupted Drink" has been selected by the Society of Animal Artists for their 2010 show "Art and the Animal".  This is the 50th aniversary show and the competition was very stiff, so it is quite an honor to have a piece selected.  The show opening will be at the San Diego Natural History Museum in September.  I will be attending the opening weekend.  On the flip side my piece was not selected for Birds In Art this year.  Oh well I will certainly try again next year.  I have seen quite a few accepted AND rejected works from BIA and there are some amazing works that did not make the show this year, the level of competition and work is astoundingly high!  I do not envy the jurors for these shows.  Here is "The Interrupted Drink"

Before I left on my trip I also had to decide which pieces I was sending to the Greeley Stampede Western Art Show.  The final selections ended up being 5 scratchboards and one pencil piece; 4 are horses and 2 are wildlife.  Sizes range from an 8"x10" piece up to the large cougar (24"x36") Now I am spending a fortune framing everything so hopefully some of them will sell.

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