Luminescent

Luminescent is almost done!  And in plenty of time for the fund raiser.  I am still 'tweaking' minor things, but for all intensive purposes it is completed.  There are some works that you struggle with for much longer than you feel that you should, and others that just flow and almost scratch themselves.  I am fortunate that this work fits into the 2nd category.  I will post the web site where the works will be available at the end of July once it is up and running.

"Luminescent" - 24"x24" - scratchboard with a hint of color

This Insantiy we call life!

Hi fellow blog followers.  I hope you all are doing well.  I am stuck in a wee bit of insanity called life!  Our scratchboard show is coming together quickly and the opening reception will be July 7 in Glen Ellen, CA.  Join us if you can.  You can also view the exhibit online here.   Here are the details to attend the real deal :):

I went to pick up my unsold work from the Colorado Governor's Show this past Tuesday only to find out that "Mouthing Off" sold on the closing weekend of the show.  Yeah!  I sold three of my four works, which is fantastic :) 

I also dropped off my art for the Greeley Stampede Invitational Western Art Show, which opens on June 20th.  If you are in the Greeley area from then until July 4 please stop in and check out the show.  I have four scratchboards and one oil painting in the exhibit. 

I am off tomorrow to Bennington, Vermont for the opening of Art of the Animal Kingdom.  This is my third year in the exhibit, but first time to attend the opening.  I am looking forward to seeing some good art friends too!

And then in all my free time (LOL) I also committed to creating a new work for a fund raiser raising money for the Wild Animal Sanctuary (big cats, wolves and bears).  20% of all sales will go directly to the sanctuary.  All work will be created of animals that actually reside there at the sanctuary (so it won't be just any tiger or leopard, it will be one that really lives there).  Anyways they are doing some special photo shoots for artists to gather reference photos of the animals, but they are when I am in Vermont.  However, I have been to the sanctuary in the past and taken photos there, so I will be working from those photos.  This youngster is most likely at least 5 years old now (did I mention it was a few years ago that I went there  ;)  The title of this board is "Luminescent" and it is 24"x24".  I have to have it done by July 15.  The eyes and nose will be colored, but the rest will be left black and white.  I am quite pleased with how it is progressing and think it is going to have quite an impact at the event, which will open at the end of July.







"Luminescent" Work In Progress - 24"x24" Scratchboard



Off to go pack for my trip to Vermont!  See you when I get back :)

Small Works

You may be seeing more small works from me, as not only are they faster to create, but cheaper to frame and ship too :)  However I will be doing big ones too... just not enough hours to create!  I also have several paintings on the go, though nothing close to done!

Here are a couple of small boards finished in the past two weeks.  Even small boards take usually 10-20 hours to be created.

"In Repose" I started Two YEARS ago, but I didn't like something about it, so it ended up in a box in my basement where I found it before my last workshop and decided to finish it.  Size is 5"x7".

"In Repose" - 5"x7" - Scratchboard

"Elk Calf" I worked on at my art fair this past weekend.  The art fair was in Estes Park, which is the gateway town into Rocky Mtn. National Park.  Both Estes and RMNP have HUGE elk populations and can often be seen right in the town, so it seemed a fitting subject to work on while there.  The reference photo was taken in RMNP last fall.  Size on this little fella is 5"x5"

"Elk Calf" - 5"x5" - Scratchboard

"Elk Calf" close up with penny for perspective.

Updates and upcoming shows

My Spring continues to be incredibly busy! 

The Colorado Governor's Show opened on April 28 and was a success.  I sold two works, including one work to a repeat client that purchased from me last year.  Thanks Paul and Charlotte!  My two works that sold were "American Icon" and "Mother May I?"  This show is at the Loveland Museum in Loveland, CO and runs through June 10.  Don't miss it if you are in the area!

"Napoleon"

My oil painting "Napoleon" was juried in to Bennington Center For the Arts "Art Of The Animal Kingdom" exhibition, which will open in Bennington, VT June 14.  This is my third year in the show and last year I won their Viewer's Choice Award with "The Interrupted Drink", however this will be my first year being able to attend the show opening. 





"Just A Glance"

I found out that my work titled "Just A Glance" has been selected for the Society of Animal Artists Annual Exhibition.  The SAA is the worlds most prestigious animal art organization, and I am always honored to be included in their exhibition.  This show will open at the Hiram Blauvelt Art Museum in New Jersey in October.

"Spotted"

Just this week I was notified that all five of the works that I had submitted to a competition run by BBC that they call 'Wildlife Artist of the Year' have made it in to the final round of judging in the international artist category.  They told us that they initially had 1,120 entries and narrowed it down to 127 works!  So for me to get five out of five in was quite a surprise!  Works I had entered were Edge Of Darkness, The Naturalist,  Mother May I?,  Spotted, and Napoleon.  Results will be announced May 24.



Promotion is under way for the Greeley Stampede Invitational Western Art Show, which will open June 22 and run through the 4th of July.  One of the ways that the show is promoted this year includes an article in Southwest Art Magazine about the show.  My artwork Tassels is printed in the magazine and also on Southwest Art Mags blog.  You can see the image and read the article here (or pick up the June magazine at your local bookstore).  To the left is a sampling of my work that will be at Greeley (plus two more not shown here).

And if all of this is not enough to make your head spin around, I will be having my first art fair of the year over Memorial Day Weekend (May 26-28) in Estes Park, CO.  They call their event "Art Market" and although I have never had a booth at this event before I have walked through it once or twice and always enjoyed seeing the variety of art.  The show runs Sat. and Sun. 9-5 and Mon. 9-4.  If you are looking for something to do over the long weekend it should be a good show.  I will have a wide selection of originals, prints, bookmarks and more available for purchase, plus be doing demos with scratchboard.

Between all of this, plus a trip to Oregon about 10 days ago, and teaching a workshop last Saturday, I have unfortunately not had much time to create new artwork, but I hope to have some updates and new work to show soon.

Calling All Scratchboard Artists

I wanted to let you know about a scratchboard show we are holding in California this summer as part of the newly formed International Society of Scratchboard Artists. We would LOVE to have any scratchboard artist that is interested submit their work. Please check out the prospectus at: http://www.scratchboardsociety.com/exhibition2012.html The deadline for entering was extended to May 1, so kind of last minute, but we are really hoping to add more quality work to the show than what has been submitted so far, so I hope you will consider entering. There is over $1000 in prize money to be won! You do not have to be an ISSA member to submit or attend the event to win.  Artwork does not have to be recent.

Overhauling an older work

Every artist has created them... those works that are... meah...ok, but just no matter how much you work on them they are not really quite 'there', something just isn't pushing your buttons about the work.  I've had my share of them too.  Sometimes they are something I start and end up stopping in the middle and hiding them away, other times I 'complete them' but they still just are not really quite there.  When I have a work like that I stick it in my flat file... out of sight, but I don't varnish them.  Sets of artwork come and go from the files, finished and varnished, finished and varnished... and the unhappy works sits, unvarnished...out of sight, but not out of mind.  Well in some cases these works are black and white works and sometimes a change in the form of adding color is the needed ticket to help give them new life. 

Such is the case with 12"x12" board that I had titled "Takin' A Lickin' " when I completed it in Dec. 2010.  So it has sat in my files for about 16 months... waiting for something more.

So colored it got yesterday (in between working on the big horse).  I do think it improved it quite a bit and gave more dimension to the work.  Still doing very minor edits to it now.  Some may not agree that it is better in color, but the reality is I am the artist, so I get to choose :D 



"Takin' A Lickin'" - 12"x12" - Scratchboard and Ink

Go Big Or Go Home :)

I started my largest scratchboard to date - a 30"x40" board.  I have done several 24"x36" boards (including Comin' At Ya' and In Hot Pursuit), but not only is this board larger, but also it started out as clayboard, which is scratchboard without any black ink on it (so the white clay board).   

So I pulled out the airbrush and made a mask of the area I wanted black and blasted it with black ink.  Ink sprays very nicely through an airbrush, but I am admittedly not very good with the airbrush for anything more than very simple things (like this).  I have not found out that the black ink I used is not nearly as water resistant as what the regular scratchboards are sprayed with, so definitely finding some drawbacks with this ink. 

Anyways  Not really TOO far along yet, and of course it will look much better once he has some scratching on the face, but I am having fun with the shiny coat.  The horse is a handsome friesian stallion named Tettrino van het Kasteel that I photographed a couple of years ago.  He resides at Kasteel Farm.

Here is a rather poor photo of the board.  Hopefully a better photo to follow.

Time is A Flyin'!!

Already 1/4 of the way in to the year - how incredible that is!  And the rest of the year will not include any slowing down :)  I just got an events calendar of where my work will be and this list will only be growing as I hopefully get juried in to even more shows.  You can see my calendar of events at: http://www.cathysheeter.com/events.html

I have finished "In Hot Pursuit" and have started two new paintings.

"In Hot Pursuit" - 36"x24" - scratchboard and ink

If you are a scratchboard artist please consider submitting work to the 1st Annual International Society of Scratchboard Artists (ISSA) exhibition.  Deadline for entry is April 25.  You can find the prospectus at: http://www.scratchboardsociety.com/exhibition2012.html  You DO NOT have to be a member of ISSA to submit work.  You also do not have to attend the opening!   The opening will be July 7 in Glen Ellen, CA and the two days after the show opening will be demos and workshops.  You can find that info at: http://www.scratchboardsociety.com/workshops.html

Next weekend will be the opening for the Colorado Governor's Show in Loveland.  You can preview my work and other artists works on their web site at http://www.governorsartshow.org/  If you are in the Loveland, CO area April 29 to June 10 please stop in at the Loveland Museum and check out the show, as it is always full of very nice work.

I also have two works that will be hanging in a booth hosted by the Society of Animal Artists at the  World Championship Wildfowl Carving Competition and Art Festival in Ocean City, MD hosted by the Ward Museum.  This event is only a weekend long - April 27-29, so if you live in that area stop by that booth and check it out.

Finished bear painting

I finished the bear painting.  And yes the butterfly is gone :)  You can see it at 100% detail on my web site at: http://www.cathysheeter.com/Zm-onthewind.html

"On The Wind" - 18"x24" - Oil Painting on Claybord

A painting we will go...

So here it is spring time, which means BUSY time in the art world!  I swear I have an art deadline like every other day... if not applying, then mailing, sending in some needed paperwork, filling out some form, etc!  Not all that easy to stay on top of it for a disorganized person like me.  I try to get all the dates into my ipad calendar program, which helps quite a bit, but it still seems overwhelming at times!!  This week two deadlines, next week two more deadlines, ship work for another event, and fill out and mail paperwork for a third!! 

I just found out that 'Napoleon', the sunbird painting, was selected for Art of the Animal Kingdom Exhibition in Bennington, VT. 

I am still working on my third painting.  I am kind of ready to be done with it and move on to something new, but it is not quite done.  Here is is right now.  There has been a big debate everywhere that I post it about the butterfly, and whether it should go away or adds to the work.  It is about a 50/50 split of people that feel either way (and feel strongly!)...LOL  I am still working on the foreground.

18"x24" Oil Painting - Work In Progress

In Hot Pursuit - Work In Progress

Since I finished the big horse "Comin' At Ya" I started another one.  It is coming along quite quickly so here is the progress on it. 

The start of the board (this is about 1/3 of the board)

Progressing nicely (about 2/3 of the board)

This is the whole board - 36"x24"

Where I leave this board at as of today :)

Coming At Ya - Calling It Done

I am also calling this one pretty much done.  I might still 'tweak' a few things, but not much more I think.

35.75" x 24" (bottom edge has a ding so I will cut it off) which makes it pretty close to life sized for a horse's head I believe.  I will be laying out another 'big' board this week I believe.  It is colored with mostly Ampersand Inks.

Bighorn Ram

I just completed a piece of a Bighorn Sheep Ram.  I took my reference photos this past fall during their rut.  It was a COLD day with light snow falling and heavy overcast and although I was hoping to capture some impressive head butting behavior they were more interested in sleeping in.  Over several hours of watching I only once saw two young rams hit heads once...sort of... barely... LOL  That is just how it is sometimes when you are trying to take photos.  Finally one larger ram (the one in my art) did come over the hill and follow two females toward me. 

It was a fun and unique challenge figuring out how to create the texture of the horns.  Most of it was completed with the fiberglass brush.  I use this tool quite a lot for textures that are not fur (and even for fur sometimes).  Another challenge was that not only do they have the rings growing horizontal on the horn, but they also have striation that runs vertically on the horn. 

If you want to see the up close details you can check out the zoomify version on my web site.  It does require flash, but click and it will zoom you in so that you can see every scratch!  At least 80% of the work on my web site has this function because I think it is so cool! 

Wayward artist

Well I tried posting about a month ago and blogger was down... honestly I did not mean to go so long between postings!  I will try to do better in 'all my free time' (haha).

I have completed the pair of wolves that I had going on here as a WIP and titled it "Mouthing Off".  

"Mouthing Off" - 16"x20" Scratchboard and Ink



















I also completed a smaller wolf piece recently. 


"Just A Glance" - 11"x14" - Scratchboard and Ink



In January I started an oil painting class at the Art Student League of Denver with artist Rob Gratoit.  My first 'assignment' was to paint something that appeared abstract, but actually exists in real life (such as an aerial photo, the insides of a mineral, etc.)  I chose to paint a photo I took of Sand Dunes National Park many years ago (way back with my 2 megapixel camera!).  Anyways at the end I decided to add a pair of gemsbok oryx to it :)  Not so abstract after all.  It turned out... ok... not bad for a first painting, but I wasn't totally happy with it either.  Not up to my standards I guess you could say.

Anyways I started my second painting before going to my next class because I didn't want to do another abstractish thing... I wanted to paint animals of course!  I chose to go with one of my photos from South Africa of a male collared sunbird, which has lots of colors and iridescent feathers on its head.  I am pretty sure my instructor thought I was jumping way too far ahead, but I would rather paint something I was interested in than not...LOL  Anyways it came out great I think.  Now onto the next one... a grizzly bear I think.

"Napoleon" - 18"x24" oil painting on claybord

"Tassels"

An 8"x10" board that I worked on this week.  The tassels are put on the bridle as decoration and are often seen on bridles that were historically used as decorative attire for the horse for fancy events.  They may go back historically as a form of fly preventative to keep insects out of the horses eyes, but I could be wrong about that too :)  This quarter horse I photographed at a junior rodeo and I thought the tassels and fancy bling buckle made it visually interesting.  The original is available for sale.  e-mail me at cathy@aphelionart.com if you are interested in more information about it.

"Tassels" - 8"x10" - Scratchbaord Art