Back from Jellystone

I am now home from my Yellowstone trip as well, and I believe that will be my final longer out of town trip until 2011.  I had a wonderful trip and saw lots of critters, took LOTS of photos and enjoyed spending time with nature!

Now here it is October and I need to get cracking on some artwork!  Less computer time and more art time is in order for the rest of the year to prepare for all the shows I anticipate for 2011.

Here is an update on the larger pair of wolves on the 24"x36" board. 

As well as a progression on the small wolf (14"x11"), which I am pondering coloring

I am also still working on my commission and will be starting a few more boards very soon.

Cuteness!!

I spent yesterday at the Denver Zoo and a good portion of that time was spent watching 4 baby siberian tiger cubs, born May 31.  How cute are these little ones!!  There are two males and two females born to mother, Koshka (Koosh-kuh), and father, Waldemere (Wald-uh-meer).  I believe they are both first time parents.  More photos posted on facebook if interested.

Catching up! The last few weeks!!

Well what a busy time my last few weeks have been!  My art fair on August 28-29 was a success with lots of people coming through the  booth, decent sales and lovely weather.  My booth took 2nd place in the fine art category too!   Here are some pictures of my booth early Saturday morning before people were coming through.  There was a steady flow of people both days.  Originals on the back and left side walls, framed prints on the right side.

The left wall (originals other than the Greeley Poster)

Framed prints, cups, calendars, magnets, bookmarks and more on the right wall

Just two days after my art fair I flew out to San Diego for Society of Animal Artists 50th anniversary Exhibit opening of Art and the Animals.  What a fantastic time all weekend!  About 100 artists (as well as many spouses and patrons) were in attendance and it was so fun to visit with old friends as well as making new ones!  A wonderful group of people indeed.

I arrived on Tuesday afternoon to be able to do everything there was to do.  On Wed we went whale watching and although we did not see any whales we did find a large pod of bottle nose dolphins, as well as seals, sea lions, and various sea birds.  It was a lovely day on the water and I didn't even get sea sick!

Snowy egrets scuffle over bait fish on a boat in the marina

Brown pelican flies low over the ocean

Sea foam from an outgoing tide made great patterns

On Thursday we all bussed to the San Diego Wild Animal Park.  I had not been here in almost 15 years, and it had changed from how I remembered.  My favorite part of this day was a cheetah demo where a cheetah chased a ball.  I am excited to work from some of those photos in the future.

Male gerenuk courts with a female in estrus by demonstrating high stepping behavior.  She was ignoring him ;)

Bald Ibis - not exactly pretty in the typical sense, but I loved the iridescent feathers and lighting

Cheetah chases ball as part of a demo

Friday it was off to the famous San Diego Zoo!  What a zoo it is as well!  Tons of great photo opportunities!

Not really exotic, but this female red breasted merganser had great light and was actively preening

Grizzly bear shaking

Who can resist a meerkat in evening light??

Saturday was a busy day with meetings, talks by Robert Bateman, off to the museum to see the exhibit (finally) and the awards dinner.  I also did a scratchboard demo at the museum.  Here is a picture taken by a friend of me with "The Interrupted Drink" at the museum.  Darn plexi-glass picks up a lot of glare :(  The entire show of about 150 works was simply spectacular and it was a true honor to have work included in this exhibition.

The piece I worked on for my demo - 14"x11" Wolf

From San Diego I flew to San Fransisco to see my Aunt, Uncle and two cousins (ages 23 and 18), which I had not seen in about 10 years. 

It was fun to catch up, but now it is great to be home too!!!

2011 Scratchboard Calendars NOW Available!

This beautiful over sized 2011 wall calendar (measures 9.5"x12.25") is printed on glossy paper and makes a perfect gift or a beautiful accent to any house! Each calendar is hand signed by Cathy on the front cover with a custom inscription available at no extra charge (please include what you would like it to say in your paypal notes). Every month has a different scratchboard image from Cathy's work. This years calendar features both color and black and white works. Reasonably priced at just $15 (plus shipping of $5 in USA, $8 elsewhere) they are sure to delight!


Last year's calendar sold out, so order early to make sure you get one!

To buy one please go to: http://www.aphelionart.com/2011calendar.html

More Art Fair Fare

I spent most of today working on more stuff for my art fair which is 10 days away.  Coffee cups, travel mugs, aluminum bottles, and candles all with my work on them took up most of my day, though I did get a little bit of scratching done tonight too.

A bit of progress on the pair of wolves.  I Have started on wolf #2 though there is still quite a bit of work to do on #1 as well.  This is the full board pretty much.

The other project I have been working on is a piece that I will use for a demonstration for Society of Animal Artists in California at the start of Sept. at the show opening.  It is another wolf - size is just 11"x14" for this one for ease of traveling with it.  I'm thinking about the title of "A Hopper and a Pouncer" for it, as he is looking at a grasshopper.

The tale of the plastic bags

So last year at my first art fair all and all things went very well.  However on more than one occasion I had people ask me for bag for their merchandise - something I had not thought to bring along.  So recently I have been trying to find where to buy plastic bags at a reasonable rate.  I tried local hobby stores with no luck.  I asked at various stores and no one knew where to get them.  Sure, I could buy them online, but it was expensive and I just had not gotten it done and now the art fair is right around the corner!  OMG plastic bags are everywhere... so I started to think about just saving the ones I had... but thought it would be a bit tacky to be putting my work in target and walmart bags.  This dilemma seemed to be much more complicated than it should have been. 

Today I went to purchase a product for my gridwalls for hanging the mugs I will be making.  They deal with a lot of people that do art fairs and thought they might know.  They suggest a local retail store.  I drive over there and am quoted $125 for 1000 bags!!  Well I was not planning on spending over $100 for bags thank you very much.  I stop at party city on the off chance that they sell them.  They have small 12"x6" bags, but nothing larger.  However I explain what I am looking for and FINALLY I get a lead that they think Sam's club carries them.  Fortunately I joined Sam's club earlier this year and am now out just $12 for 1000 bags... now that is what I am talking about!!  They won't be large enough for my biggest prints, but should be able to accommodate all the other sizes.

Now I wish it had not taken me like 4 hours of running around to find them, but that should last me quite a while and now I know where to get them :)

Art fairing it :)

Art fairs are a pretty new thing for me.  I did my first one last year, a large outdoor show, and then one smaller one this spring.  They are also a fickle beast I have found just in the two I have done.  The first one was outdoors, nice weather and quite well attended.  The small one was indoors and poorly attended.  My sales reflected this.

Anyways the big outdoor one I am doing again and it is August 28-29 in Parker, CO at O'Brien Park.  If you live in the area please stop by!  Last year I mostly just had prints for sale (plus original work) and did quite well, but this year I am expanding my inventory and will have more variety of things carrying my art as well... this year will include calendars, bookmarks, magnets, mugs, prints and more!  I have been having quite a bit of fun making all of these things and hope it will be time well spent :) 

Here is a picture of just a FEW of the bookmarks.  I think they came out looking pretty good overall.  I should have everything else done by next week and will post a few more pictures.  After the art fair I may post some of the left over inventory on my website and etsy too.

Featured on "Illustration Pages" :)

My work is being featured on the highly regarded blog called Illustration Pages. They did a very nice write up and if interested you can read it at: http://www.illustrationpages.com/2010/08/scratchboard-artist-cathy-sheeter.html

I spent today getting ready for my art fair and very little time for art :(  My days go by too quickly and not enough time to get my art done recently it seems.

About time for a picture!!

I know if has been too long!  I have been working on a commission that I can not show here, but also a bigger piece 24"x24" (unless I decide to extend it to 24"x30")

This is about 1/3 of the board (or less) and I feel like it is going very slowly!  No title ideas yet, but I am sure something will come to me soon.

The Unexpected Show

Well my frame shop is loving me, so much that they asked me if I wanted to show there through August.  I jumped at the chance and enjoyed good crowds and lots of conversation last Friday, for the first Friday art walk in the Santa Fe Art District in downtown Denver.  I forgot to take my camera and was busy chatting (last people didn't leave until 11 PM), but the frame shop took some pictures.  You can check them out at Furthur Frames Gallery on facebook.  One of the most fun things is listening to people talk about your work when they don't know you are the artist.  I heard at least one person say that each of the about 13 pieces I had there was their favorite!  Thanks Corey and Al for all your help and allowing me to show!  Most of the show will be up through August 26th.

The approaching Society of Animal Artists 50th Anniversary show is right around the corner (Sept 1-5) and I am getting very excited.  I finally bought my plane ticket and "The Interrupted Drink" should be in San Diego by Thursday!  I also set my reservations to go to Cody, WY at the end of Sept for the Rendezvous Royale.  While up there I will travel through Yellowstone and the Tetons and enjoy my birthday in one of my very favorite places in the world!!  I will be trying to go visit the Pryor Mountain wild horses as well- but only so many days to play before I have to come back home to work.

In other news and events... mark your calendar for my one art fair of the year!  I will have prints, calendars, magnets, bookmarks, originals and more at Art In the Park in O'Brien Park in Parker, Colorado August 28 and 29th.  Please stop by and say hi!

more show info

I also just heard back from the bi-annual show OVAL's Kentucky National Wildlife Art Exhibit and both of my pieces were juried in (Intrigue and On The Prowl)!   My frame shop is loving me right now - with 6 pieces needing to be framed!!

I started a new piece that will be 24"x24" and hope to post a picture tomorrow.  I am not very far along yet.

Pinto 'Stang update

My allergies have really been kicking my butt for more than the past month and I am so 'done with them'.  None of the regular drugs seem to be having much impact, so I feel congested, headaches and tired all the time right now, which is very irritating.  They started later than usual into the summer and seem to be sticking around a lot longer than usual for me too.  What a drag!!

Anyways, I did make some good progress on the mustang girl this afternoon.  I keep calling her a pony, but it came from the fact that I thought I might make her an indian 'pony' with feathers and war paint and such, which I will do eventually a board or two on, but decided not to on this piece.  In reality she is not a pony at all, but a horse.  Oh well whaterever you call her... here is the update.  I decided I didn't care for her markings with almost all white body and dark head.  It was confusing to the eye and thus I added a pinto marking on her side back into the image.  I still have some work to do on her face, but am getting pretty close to calling her done.  I am open to title suggestions too.

updates and such

Sorry for being so reticence in posting updates to my blog!  The days just seem to go by so quickly and before I know it I am onto the next one!  How did it get to be the middle of July already!!  Wasn't Christmas like a month ago??

Anyways... I have been busy indeed. 

My art portion of my website (http://www.aphelionart.com/) has had a bit of an overhaul as I try to get my page rankings up and make myself more findable for search engines.  Most of the changes were html and behind the scenes things, but I did add a couple of links about scratchboard with some tutorials and FAQs.

From the end of June through July 4 I had seven works hanging at the Greeley Stampede Invitational Western Art Show.  Two works were sold (Bending and What Next?) and I also earned the top two spots for people's choice awards with Walking The Line and Bending.

From July 7 through the 14th I was off to Indianapolis where I was a part of a scratchboard artist show and workshops.  Approximately 15 artists from all over the US and Canada attended.  We shared techniques, styles and tips and had an overall wonderful time!  We also discussed the formation of an international scratchboard society and I will be helping to work on that as well.  If that is something that you are interested in once it is up and running feel free to send me an e-mail and I will make sure you are notified.

While I was away in Indy I found out that my piece, A Driving Force, has been selected to be published in "Strokes Of Genius III - Best of Drawing".  This book is slated to come out in 2011.  The original of this piece was donated to the Buffalo Bill Historical Society "Patron's Ball" that will be held in September.

I also learned that The Interrupted Drink was picked as a finalist in The Artist Magazine Annual Competition.  While my 3rd place last year was a step up ;)  it is still quite an accomplishment to make it as a finalist.  They pick around 30 total winners/finalists in each category (of which there are 7) out of around 12,000-14,000 entries!!

Two piece were juried into the American Academy of Equine Art exhibition, a pencil drawing (A Kind Eye) and a scratchboard (Darkness and Light).  This show told me last year that scratchboard was not an eligible medium. This year I wrote a cover letter explaining why it should be included so I felt like getting one scratchboard in was a small victory! This show starts in the middle of September at the Kentucky Horse Park, Lexington, KY

So I guess you could say it has been a productive month already!!  Look for an update on the pinto pony tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Maddie!

It is my first Belgian Sheepdog, Maddie's, Birthday today.  Yep she was born on the 4th of July.  I have had her since she was 10 weeks old and she has done everything I have ever asked of her and more!  She turned 9, but you would never know it by the way she acts. 
Maddie is more formally Champion Isengard's Makin' A Scene CDX RA OA NAJ

She still looks great- don't you think?  This photo was taken in May of this year.

I made good progress on the pinto today.  Getting the smooth look of horse hair (especially white) is far from a fast project. I spent about 5-6 hours working today.