Ann Ranlett's Blog - Animals, Art, Etc.

"Sleeping Patterns" - New Scratchboard Drawing

2013-04-06T18:01:00.000-07:00

"Sleeping Patterns", diptych - each half is 8" x 8", on Ampersand Scratchbord

I finished this drawing with about two days to spare. I wanted to submit something new for this year's International Society of Scratchboard Artists' (ISSA) exhibit. I had to take a week-long break from the "Down on the Farm" series to make the April 1st entry deadline. This tiger drawing has been on my "to do" list since I saw the wonderful reference photo in a Sacramento Zoo membership brochure. I'm fortunate to have contacts at the Zoo, so I was able to get permission to use the photo and a high resolution digital file from which to work. I knew from the moment I saw the photo that I needed to come up with a unique concept for rendering it. Using scratchboard was a no-brainer and the composition pretty much created itself. I wanted to makethis a diptych (two part) piece, so I took the original photo and cropped/scaled it into two 8" x 8" sections. I liked the mirror image of the photo better, so I flipped it also. I used Derwent Inktense pencils to color only the tigers' heads and I knocked the rest of the drawing back with a wash of diluted black ink. You can see each finished half at the bottom of this post.

The original photo

The photo flipped, sized and cropped into two parts

Greyscale version of the previous photos

Since I was up against a deadline, I didn't have time to scan this drawing in progress, but I did scan each part after I finished the scratching.

And here are the two finished halves.

This piece represents a lot of scratching and I'm very pleased with the way it turned out. And it's always nice when a finished drawing matches the vision I had for it!

"Down on the Farm" - New Series

2013-03-09T13:22:00.001-08:00

In 2011, Laurie Barrows, the curator of the Art Can Heal program at the Sutter Auburn Faith Hospital contacted me to see if I'd be interested in showing my work there. I agreed, but our 2012 schedules didn't mesh, so we chose April 2013 for the show. The show opens in mid-April, but I don't have the exact date yet.

I decided I wanted to come up with a new series of scratchboard drawings, since scratchboard is an under-represented medium and I truly love sharing it with others. Scratchboard drawings are more time-intensive than other mediums I use, but I had months to come up with a new batch of drawings and I planned to work these drawings in a simpler style than I usually do. Well, of course, the drawings took on a mind of their own, and they're not really much less detailed. And as is always the case, although I started on the first board of this series in December of 2012, I'm feeling the time crunch to get them all finished! Having said all that, I'm really happy with how the boards are turning out and have been getting wonderful feedback as I share them on Facebook and WetCanvas.

I chose "Down on the Farm" as the theme for my show, since I have plenty of reference photos of farm animals. Completed so far are a border collie, our dog Arrow, a donkey, a cat, a chick, a sunflower and a vintage Ford tractor. Nearly finished is a pair of mini foals. I've just started on a goose and left to do are a border collie/sheep diptych, a goat, two hens, a pig and a cow. That's fifteen in total, but I'm making good progress! You can see the series and various stages of progress in my Facebook album.

"Tough Chick", 6" x 6" Ampersand Scratchbord, colored with Derwent Inktense pencils
This is one of the boards, "Tough Chick". All but two of the reference photos are my own. One of the hens I'll be drawing is from a photo by Katherine Plumer. Kat Moore, a fellow scratchboarder offered some photos of her banty chickens. She sent quite a few and I fell in love with this one.

I've been scanning a few in-progress stages of each of the boards in this series. Here are the scans of "Tough Chick", along with the reference photo. As I do with all my scratchboard drawings, I also work with a greyscale version of the photo, to give me a better idea of the tones of the image. The second greyscale image is one with adjusted contrast to give me more darks and lights.

At this stage, the scratching is mostly complete

One of the ways I'm saving a little time is by not re-scratching very much after I've added the color. If this were going to be a stand-alone drawing, I'd go back in and scratch out more of the black and re-color to build even more depth and detail. As it is, these drawings resemble tinted photographs or woodcuts, and that's perfectly ok!

An animated image of the stages

On Entering Art Shows

2013-02-23T20:09:00.000-08:00

I decided to try and enter more art shows this year. Not just local shows, but shows where I have to ship work that is selected. In past years, I haven't had much in the way of "surplus" art. Much of my work is commissioned pieces which aren't available to enter in shows. The extra work I do have is needed in my space at the Auburn Old Town Gallery. This year, I have some extra art because I did a number of new paintings for an Art Walk last year, and over the years, the surplus has been building up. Many shows require that entered work be current, created within the last year or two, others aren't as particular.

While being accepted into select shows is good for my resumé and garners exposure in new places, it also has a downside in that I have to pay to enter and then pay to ship my work. However, another item on the plus side is that shows offer cash awards, so it's worth a shot. If I'm hoping to win an award, it's important to pick shows where my work has a chance, so I look for shows where my art (subject and/or medium) is a good fit. So far, things are going well, I entered three pieces in the Sacramento Fine Arts Center's "Animal House" show and all three were accepted (no awards, but at least I was able to hand-deliver the art). One of the pieces was my scratchboard drawing of Magpie, mainly because I want to bring attention to scratchboard when I have the opportunity. It's an uncommon medium in the art show world. Rarely is there a category specifically for scratchboard. Sometimes there will be a category for "drawing". In the SFAC show, all two-dimensional art other than photography was lumped together.

The other two entries were paintings "recycled" from the Art Walk: Ernie & Velvet.

My work was also accepted into the 26th Annual "Animals in Art" Show at the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine. I learned of this show in 2012 and thought it would be a good one to enter this year. I submitted two works and one was accepted. I'm honored to have been selected, since my drawing of Homer the pig was one of 75 pieces chosen out of 426 entries submitted by 181 artists. Homer is an older drawing, but there was no restriction on creation date for this show. I looked at last year's entries and thought he would be a good fit; I'm glad the judge thought so too! The show opens March 23rd, awards have not been announced yet.

I'm currently working on a diptych (two-part drawing) for the ISSA's 2nd Annual Scratchboard Exhibition, which I'll have to ship to Vancouver (British Columbia). I'll be attending the Exhibition and annual conference, so I definitely want a piece or two in that show. I have one or two others already completed that I'll enter, but I really want to have something new and different to submit. I created the Magpie drawing above for the 2012 ISSA show.

And since this has been a really scratchboard-heavy post, why not finish it off with a preview of works in progress for an upcoming solo show of my drawings? It will be in April in the "Art Can Heal" gallery of a local hospital. I'm scratching away like a mad woman to complete 15 new drawings for my "Down of the Farm" show. The icing on the cake for this show is that it will add to my surplus of art to enter in shows later this year and into 2014!

Vernal Pool Illustrations

2013-02-02T12:28:00.001-08:00

In November of last year, I was contracted to create some illustrations for vernal pool signage that will eventually be installed at the Jepson Prairie Preserve. Many years ago, I created illustrations for Sacramento Splash's wetland education curriculum and the Jepson job was a result of that connection. This project was funded by a grant which had a year-end deadline, making a quick turnaround necessary. I have to admit, I felt a little crazy agreeing to do this on such short notice, but I would have been more crazy to turn it down! I'm thrilled that my art will be on signage at Jepson Prairie; my client was easy to work with (she provided the majority of the reference photos and was very clear on what she wanted); and the job paid well. Funding still needs to be raised for the sign fabrication and installation and there may be additional illustration work at that time - most likely some edits to the existing drawings. Drawn in pen, there were 18 single-subject drawings (approx. 4" wide, varying heights), 9 smaller drawings (approx. 2" wide, varying heights) and 5 landscape schematics (approx. 9" x 11"). That added up to many hours and plenty of ink! Below is a selection of the single-subject drawings. The drawings are line art because the signs will be laser-etched metal, which will last longer out in the field than other sign production methods. My client set up the sign layouts, incorporating my drawings with text and time-line diagrams to explain the habitats and denizens of the Jepson Prairie preserve.

From Cell Phone Photo to Finished Portrait

2013-01-07T13:53:00.001-08:00

In this post, I'll show how a portrait with a challenging photo reference goes from initial consultation to finished product.

My client found my work on the web and sent a cell phone photo of his two cats. He wanted a portrait of them as a Christmas gift for his wife. The photo quality wasn't optimal, but I really liked the composition. Since there was a risk of spoiling the surprise, it wasn't feasible for me to go to his house to take more photos, so I told him what his options were with the photos he could provide. He wanted a detailed portrait as opposed to something in a looser style. He had initially inquired about a mini portrait (ACEO, 3.5" x 2.5") vs. a full-sized one. Because both cats were to be in the portrait, a mini portrait wouldn't have worked, too much detail would be lost, and the proportions wouldn't fit. Due to the quality of the photo, there wasn't enough detail to go any larger than 6" x 7". He agreed to the 6" x 7".

In the photo, the grey cat has decent detail, even though the photo is grainy and a little blurry. The black cat, however, is what worried me, it's pretty tough to see much detail in her, especially in her face. When I work on a portrait, I enlarge or reduce it to the size I'll be working so I can transfer the basic outlines and details to my working surface. You can see how it would have been difficult to enlarge this photo very much and maintain enough detail for a quality portrait.

I took the photo and lightened it substantially to try to pull out some detail in the black cat.

The lighter photo helped some, but I also found some good photos of black cat faces on the web and used another photo provided by my client.

Next to the cat's face is a foot reference I found on the web, since I had to draw the rest of the grey cat's right foot. The other leg/foot is a piece I cropped out of the original photo so I could lengthen the grey cat's left leg to sit on the same plane as his right. You can see how that looks in the photo below:

And here's the a version of the photo I converted to greyscale in order to have a better idea of the tones in the portrait.

As you can see, it took some editing and research to have what I needed to complete this portrait properly. Here is the final result:

Despite some frustration, I'm happy with the portrait and my client was too. Even though I was able to pull this off, it's not something I want to tackle very often. It's certainly much easier with a good, detailed photo. Whenever possible, I take my own photos since I know what works best for a portrait and can get high quality photos with plenty of detail. Of course, that's not always possible, and over the years, I've learned to be firm in what I'm able to offer a client, based on the references they can provide. Since I offer a number of style and size options for portraits, I rarely have to tell a client "no", but it's not uncommon for me to limit their options. In the end, that results in both of us being happy.

Wordless Wednesday

2012-12-19T18:29:00.002-08:00

Art Newsletter - Issue #18

2012-11-24T21:13:00.000-08:00

My November 2012 Art Newsletter is available here.

Mini Scratchboard Drawings

2012-11-20T19:14:00.001-08:00

These two small scratchboard drawings are available. I started them as demo pieces and I just finished the border collie. In fact, I still need to spray it with sealer, I'm just waiting for a day with minimal humidity! The llama has been finished for a little while. Each is $125 plus shipping (and tax if purchased in CA). You can either "buy now" via the PayPal button below the drawing, or contact me (annranlett [at] gmail.com) if you're not a fan of PayPal. Please note that I ship only to the US, UK, Australia or Canada. Price as shown below plus $5 additional shipping (sales tax will be added if you're a California resident). A small wooden easel is also included with either drawing.

Llama, Original Scratchboard Drawing, 3" x 5"
on Ampersand Scratchbord™

"Ready to Work" - Border Collie, 2.75" x 4.75"
on Ampersand Claybord™

If you'd like to see other works I have available, please visit my "Available Art" album on Facebook.

Wordless Wednesday

2012-11-14T09:22:00.000-08:00

Double Trouble - Kitten Art

2012-10-31T01:59:00.003-07:00

"Double Trouble" is a scratchboard drawing of two kitten siblings. I took the reference photo many years ago and started the drawing a while back also. It was a demo piece, so I was in no rush to complete it, but I finally finished it earlier this year and realized I had never posted it to my blog.

For this drawing, I used EssDee Professional Scraperboard (which is no longer available) and Koh-i-noor UltraDraw ink. I applied the undiluted ink with both a brush and a Rapidograph pen. I also applied washes of ink, diluting it with water into three shades (light, medium & dark). I used a #16 X-Acto blade for scratching. The drawing area measures approximately 4.5" x 6.5". "Double Trouble" is available and it's matted to fit an 8" x 10" frame (white mat with black core). Please contact me if you're interested in purchasing this piece.


Stage 1 - Black and shades of grey blocked in


Stage 2 - Fur texture scratched in to soften and blend


Stage 3 - Washes of ink added, some black added with the tech pen


Stage 4 - More scratching


Final - Fine tuning with scratching, ink washes and pen


Detail of the finished drawing

Animated Image

"Appeals for Art" - Donation Advice for Artists & Charities

2012-10-27T15:05:00.000-07:00

Two years in the making, "Appeals for Art" is the result of my collaboration with an artist colleague, Gayle Rappaport-Weiland. Using our own experiences receiving donation requests, donating art and working with charitable organizations, we have created a web site and document that will help others navigate these waters. Our goal is to educate both artists and charitable organizations in ways that will make donating art a "win-win" for both.

Please visit our web site to learn more.

For those of you in the Sacramento, CA region, we're having a launch party for this project on November 15th, 2012 at K St. Collective. Click on the image below for details.

Wordless Wednesday

2012-10-17T10:59:00.000-07:00

Art Donation - Farewell to an Old Friend

2012-10-16T19:16:00.001-07:00

Let me say this right up front: I don't, as a rule, donate original art. All my art is for sale and I create it with that purpose. I have no desire to be a starving artist and I want my art to find good homes. Although my work is for sale, that doesn't mean I don't get attached to it, but it's a great feeling when something I've created touches someone else enough for them to purchase it. As far as donations go though, I simply can't afford to donate too many higher-priced sources of potential income. While exposure is nice, it usually doesn't pan out and it doesn't buy kibble and hay for my animals.

Having said all that, I've finally gotten to the point where I have enough art to keep both my studio and my display at the Auburn Old Town Gallery well-stocked. This leads me to start thinking about donating an original, provided the situation is a good fit. Just such an opportunity arose that made me feel it was time to cut loose of an old friend and donate it.

So it was with a bit of sadness that I said goodbye today to "Quiet Strength", a scratchboard drawing of a draft horse and his owner/handler. I created this in 2003, it won awards at three different shows, and it has long been a personal favorite. However, it hadn't touched enough of a chord with anyone else, which is why I still had it. Many people over the years have liked it, just not enough to buy it!

I received a call to artists to donate works to the art auction for the Center for Contemporary Art, Sacramento (CCAS). In the application, there are a number of things that made me feel it was time to send "Quiet Strength" on down the road. One thing is that the artist has the option to request a 50/50 split of the final sale price, another is that the auction will be held at Elliott Fouts Gallery (a well-known venue in Sacramento), and a third is that I really want to see scratchboard get the exposure it deserves. It IS fine art, yet it isn't generally regarded that way. Since I started participating in discussions about scratchboard on WetCanvas, joined the International Society of Scratchboard Artists and attended workshops in June, I've had a renewed excitement over the medium.

If all goes according to plan, this drawing will touch a chord with someone and sell at the auction. And maybe for even more than retail, which would be wonderful, but it could go for less or it might not sell at all, which means it comes back to me. For now though, these are unknowns and it truly did feel like saying farewell to an old friend when I left the drawing there, propped up against the wall at CCAS.

Open Studio & Salmon Art

2012-09-29T20:49:00.000-07:00

I'm gearing up for another Open Studio event and this time, I'm part of a group of artists in my area. The Newcastle Art Studios Tour debuts on October 13th and 14th. This free tour of 5 locations showcases the work of 12 artists. For more details and a printable map, visit our web site. I'm #4 on the map. I'll have some new watercolor on Yupo paintings and some new scratchboard drawings since my last open studio in May. One of the paintings is of Ernie, the loveable shop dog at Clover and Carriage, my friend's shop in Old Town Auburn.

I'm really enjoying having my own permanent studio space, it's so much easier to set up for an open studio event. I don't have to pull everything out of storage to set up and when I'm finished, I don't have to put the displays away. There is some housekeeping to do: spiderwebs to knock down, some insects to vacuum up, some dusting, but that's a piece of cake compared to major set up and tear down!

On a different note, I completed this drawing of a salmon last week, just barely in time to enter it in the art show at the local "Calling Back the Salmon Celebration". I'm really glad I pushed to get it finished because not only am I very pleased with how it turned out, but it took Second Place in the art show! It will be hanging in a restaurant (Buonarroti) for the month of October, along with the other art show entries. Thanks to Art League of Lincoln for their assistance with the art show and coordinating the display at the restaurant.

A Beetle Goes to London

2012-09-05T16:00:00.000-07:00

In June I received an e-mail from Jasmina Cibic, a Slovenian artist. I wasn't sure what to make of it at first, but after some e-mail discussions with her, I decided to get on board. What she had proposed was part of a very interesting and unique project.

Her request of me was to contribute an illustration of an endangered beetle with a very unfortunate scientific name: Anophthalmus hitleri. She had been in touch with a number of other illustrators and she was asking us to draw our interpretation of this beetle without doing any research on it. Our drawings were to be based on our knowledge of beetles, scientific nomenclature, whatever information she provided and nothing else.

Below is an excerpt from Jasmina's initial e-mail:
"I am a London based artist and I am currently developing a new project for the European Capital of Culture in Maribor, Slovenia. The project is based on the story of discovery of an endemic beetle living in the northern part of Slovenia, which is in danger of becoming extinct solely because of its name.

I am looking for scientific illustrators from various parts of the world to collaborate on the project. It is a very complex installation, comprising of a film work and crystal models of zoological vitrines and a collection of drawings of the mentioned endemic beetle by various scientific illustrators from around the world. . . . The work would be exhibited within the installation and featured in the cataloge of the project that will be published by the public gallery Skuc gallery Ljubljana, Slovenia.

In 1933 Vladimir KodriÄ happened upon a beetle in one of Slovenia's caves around Celje, which he thought might represent a new species. In 1937 the entomologist Oscar Scheibel confirmed this. As a Hitler sympathizer, Scheibel named the insect Anophthalmus hitleri.

A name of an organism can only be changed in extreme circumstances that have to do with the development of knowledge. Politically sensitive names cannot be amended, therefore all attempts to rename the beetle have been unsuccessful.

Because of the politically embarrassing name this beetle has been throughout its known existence held semi-secretive and even when it was featured on a Yugoslavian stamp in 1984, its Latin name was withheld. More recently, neo-Nazis in Slovenia have destroyed a part of its habitat, whilst collecting the specimens, after an article about its existence was published by the National Geographic in 2006."

So from this, all I knew was that it was a blind (Anophthalmus = without eyes) cave beetle. For my illustration, I used a reference photo of one of our local beetles, slimmed it down, made it less spiky and tried to make it look eyeless. This is the result:

I shipped the illustration to London as Jasmina requested and once I knew it had arrived, I looked up the actual beetle on the web. I found a good photo of a preserved specimen on Flickr:

"My" beetle is more robust than the real thing, but somewhat surprisingly, I wasn't all that far off. I'm curious to see what other illustrators created. Jasmina will send a catalog of the exhibit ("Situation: Anophthalmus hitleri") when it's ready. There's some information about the installation on-line. It opens in November.

I scanned a couple of stages of my illustration. Here's an animated GIF of it:

The drawing is approximately 5.5" x 6.5" on an 8" x 11" piece of white scratchboard.

Wordless Wednesday

2012-08-29T17:51:00.000-07:00

Art Newsletter - Issue #17

2012-08-24T04:45:00.001-07:00

I don't know why I didn't think of this before . . .

I've sent out 16 issues of my e-newsletter and I don't recall ever posting anything about it on my blog. I won't include the full content here, but this is what you'll find in the current issue:

Colfax Art Walk
Friday, September 14th, 3 - 8 pm

"Art at the Classic"
At the Draft Horse Classic, Sept. 20 - 23 in Grass Valley, CA

Fall Open Studio
Saturday & Sunday, October 13 & 14

A Meeting of the Minds
Scratchboard Artists' Event (there's more about this in my previous blog post)

The Pink Llama Gallery
And why I love the internet!

It's on-line so you can read it here. At the bottom of the newsletter are links to past issues and to subscribe if you'd like. Every issue also has a 15% off coupon for my Bonanza Shop.

And because this is my art blog, here's some art:

A Grand Time at the ISSA Event

2012-07-12T15:07:00.001-07:00

I'm not sure I can put it all into words, but the International Society of Scratchboard Artists' (ISSA) exhibition and workshops were phenomenal. I spent July 6th - 10th in the Santa Rosa, CA area in the company of incredibly talented, giving and friendly scratchboard artists. You must understand that the scratchboard community is very small when compared to other artistic mediums. Many of us are the only artists working in scratchboard in our areas, let alone our own states/provinces (not true for CA, but it is for other places). So the opportunity to meet each other and see an entire show of nothing but scratchboard art was an incredible treat. The ISSA just formed last year, with the purpose of promoting scratchboard as fine art, not just craft. It IS fine art and anyone who has a chance to see a good board in person can't deny that. The problem has been that most art venues (shows/galleries) don't know how to categorize it. It tends to get lumped in with other categories where it often doesn't fit very well. We're hoping to change that and this meeting of the minds and talent leaves me confident that we are on the cusp of something big for scratchboard.

Up until this event, I had only met 2 of the artists in attendance. I had met some other scratchboarders at a Guild of Natural Science Illustrators' (GNSI) conference in the late 90's (which is where I learned to love scratchboard). I had "met" many of the ISSA members on-line on the scratchboard forum of WetCanvas and was thrilled to meet them in person and put names and art to real faces.

On Saturday, we attended the artists' reception for the Exhibition at the ARThouse Gallery in Glen Ellen, CA. The show really is amazing. We had seen the boards on WetCanvas or on the Exhibition web page, but that doesn't do them justice. The detail of the works just has to be seen in person to truly appreciate it.

On Sunday and Monday we attended workshops at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts. Eight artists demonstrated their techniques. There are many ways to scratch a board and each artist has their own methods, tools and preferences. I was one of the demonstrators and was honored to be included and to be in the presence of scratchboard greats!

Between the scheduled events, there were meals together, chatting and scratching in the hotel lobby and other assorted random excursions & adventures. I had been looking forward to this event for many reasons and I was not disappointed! I made some new friends and connections and arrived back home with a head full of great memories and much inspiration.

I've shared a few photos here, but you can see more in my Facebook album.

Original Art Available & Art Show Entries

2012-06-28T18:38:00.002-07:00

I had a small brainstorm last night and set up an album on my Facebook fan page where you can see which original drawings or paintings I have available. With the exception of a few works (mostly ACEOs and a couple of larger pieces) my originals are in the album. In the description for each image is a link to a web page with more details. It finally dawned on me that this would be a convenient way to corral all my originals in one place.

In other news, I've been working on a couple of pieces to submit to the "Art at the Classic" art show to be held in conjunction with the Draft Horse Classic (DHC) in September. The first piece is this photo board of a draft horse, that I titled "Taking a Break". Of course, the photo was taken at a previous DHC. I cleaned up the photo in Photoshop and ran it through a few gyrations and the "poster edges" filter to come up with the final. I mount the photo on a board, take a Dremel to the edges and then paint the roughed-up edges with India ink. I spray that with an archival UV sealer and then coat the surface with 3 layers of acrylic gloss medium.

Below on the left, is the photo, as shot, before any corrections. On the right is the photo with some edits - most notably, the light and beam in the upper left are gone and I've tweaked the contrast. From that point, I make additional layers of the image using different effects on each layer to get the final image as shown above.

Usually, I just put a hanger on the back of the photo board and it's good to go, but I mounted this one to another board (that I painted with India ink) and dropped that in a frame. The board is 6" x 6" and the frame is 8" x 8".

The other piece I want to submit is this 5" x 3" scratchboard drawing of a miniature horse foal. I've made a great deal more progress on it since this scan and I think I can get it done in time to meet the July 1 postmark deadline! I guess I should get back to work on it . . .

A Whirlwind Trip to Santa Cruz

2012-06-06T09:45:00.000-07:00

My friend and I took a day trip to Santa Cruz last week. Yes, I said "day" trip. It would have been nice to stay overnight, and once we got down there and took in the ocean view, the refreshing breeze, the salt air and the eclectic Santa Cruz atmosphere, we didn't want to leave, but we only had a day. I picked her up in Sacramento and we spent about 7 hours on the road and 5 hours in Santa Cruz (a little over an hour of that was driving to & from my place). It was a wonderful five hours, though! And, because it was mid-week, traffic wasn't bad at all, so driving wasn't much of a hassle - almost exactly 3 hours from Sacramento to SC, each way.

The main purpose of our trip was to see the "Art of Nature" exhibit at the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History. The exhibit featured work by members of the "California Chapter of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators and included my scratchboard triptych, "Blue Oak". It was also a great reason for the two of us to spend some time together. We've been friends since high school and keep in touch electronically, but don't get together as often as we'd like. We sure had plenty of time to catch up while driving!

We met up with a friend who lives & works in Santa Cruz (yes, I'm a bit jealous!). She was able to take the afternoon off and served as our gracious tour guide and chauffeur. We had lunch in a restaurant on the pier with a great view.

We took a leisurely walk back along the pier with a detour to look at the sea lions that hang out in the bay and haul out on the platforms (intended for Kayak launching, not sea lions) at the base of the pier. Dessert was wonderful "made fresh daily" ice cream eaten while sitting on a bench looking over the beach. Then it was off to the Natural History Museum. I had never been to the Museum, it was lovely. Aside from the curator, we had the place to ourselves and it was blissfully quiet; we were there a couple of hours. Especially entrancing was the tide pool on a pedestal in the lobby. We spent quite a bit of time at the tide pool, enjoying the tranquility. Reluctantly, about 4:30 pm, we decided it was time to head home, so we went back to our friend's office (where we'd left my car) and said our goodbyes. As luck would have it, she works in a complex that has a cookie factory with an "outlet" section, so we snatched up some great cookies for the trip home.

Wordless Wednesday

2012-05-31T15:00:00.000-07:00

My Poor, Neglected Blog

2012-05-24T19:00:00.000-07:00

I haven't forgotten about my blog, and I'd really like to post more than twice a month, but that's just not happening, so I apologize! I've been more active on Facebook, so if you'd like to see my updates there, please become a fan.

Here's what's been in the hopper lately:

- Setting up my own permanent studio space (see photos in my Facebook album). I had a Grand Opening event earlier this month.

- This scratchboard drawing of our Border Collie, Magpie, for the International Society of Scratchboard Artists' 1st Annual Exhibition. I shot video of this drawing in progress and scanned it at various stages, so eventually there will be a video of the process.

- A logo (still in progress) for HartSong Ranch Animal Sanctuary

- Ostrich eggs for the Sacramento Zoo. See the lemur eggs in an earlier post. There was also this set of four roadrunners, a red panda and a thick-billed parrot. Still left to do this year are a zebra, a ring-tailed lemur and a jaguar.

- Formatting the Annual Report for FieldHaven Feline Rescue (just getting started on that)

- Finally finished a watercolor on Yupo painting of a beagle that I started as a demo years ago. This painting is available, more details here.

- Working through my list of assorted commissioned pet portraits. At the moment, I'm working on scratchboard drawing of a cat and a watercolor on Yupo painting of a goat.

- Contemplating what I'll do as a demo at the ISSA workshop

- Also contemplating what to enter in this year's "Art at the Classic" art show at the Draft Horse Classic. I'd better get cracking on that, because the deadline is July 1st.

That covers it for now, but it seems that something new & interesting always crops up!

An Afternoon at the Zoo

2012-05-01T22:14:00.000-07:00

It was a gorgeous day for a trip to the Sacramento Zoo. I had four ostrich eggs to deliver for the Zoo's upcoming "Swingin' Safari" Golf Tournament. The eggs (with pen & ink drawings of Black & White Ruffed Lemurs) will be given out as awards. The Zoo is about 45 minutes away, so I don't always take the eggs there, sometimes I'll meet a Zoo staffer halfway for the hand-off. But I hadn't been to the Zoo yet this year, so today was a good day to make the trek.

This is my second batch of four eggs this year; the first four had roadrunners on them. For the remainder of the year, there are four individual eggs for various events - each with a different animal. Each year, Zoo staff commissions about a dozen ostrich eggs. Over the years I've been doing this, that adds up to well over 200 eggs! You can see some eggs from past years on this web page. And there are a couple of blog posts also.

When I go to the Zoo, I always take my camera. Here are some photos from today:

Wordless Wednesday

2012-04-18T10:26:00.004-07:00

"Dog-A-Palooza" at the Auburn Art Walk

2012-04-02T13:58:00.015-07:00

I'm working on a series of photos for "Dog-A-Palooza", a solo show that opens on April 12th. The show will be part of the Auburn (CA) Art Walk and my friends at Dancing Dog Productions are hosting. Dancing Dog is at 1101 High Street in Auburn. I'll be at the Art Walk on the 12th from 6 - 9 pm. The show runs through approximately June 10th.

This is Idgy, the shop mascot at Dancing Dog. She's a charismatic cairn terrier mix.

I got the idea for this show because I wanted to come up with something that was less time-consuming than my traditional work. After some pondering, investigation and discussions with a couple of other artists, I decided to do a series of photos mounted on boards. I take lots of photos and have a huge reference library, with a large proportion being dogs, so dogs became the subject of the show. In addition, to try and create some additional buzz, I committed to donating a portion of the proceeds from the sale of works at this show to two local dog rescue groups. I'm a supporter of Chako Pit Bull Rescue & A New Hope Animal Foundation (ANH), so I contacted them to make sure they would allow me to use their names in conjunction with this show. Some of the photos in the show are of puppies rescued by ANH and dogs belonging to Chako supporters.

"Snuggly" - Pit bull pups rescued by A New Hope Animal Foundation

To make these pieces, I run the photos through a few gyrations in Photoshop, print them & mount them on an archival 6" x 6" board. I Dremel the edges and ink them, spray the surface with a UV sealer and finally, coat the surface with a couple of layers of acrylic medium. I attach a hanger to the back and the board is ready to hang. No framing needed - another time-saving plus!

While each photo requires its own adjustments to get the look I want, you can see the basic process in this video.

There's also a scratchboard drawing of this little guy, see it in a previous blog post.

I'll have 10 of these photos in the show in addition to a few original drawings/paintings. Although I still have a few pieces to add, you can see the show catalog here. Note cards of the photo images and originals will be available too. Of course, if you are unable to make it to the Art Walk, you can contact me regarding purchase of any of the items in the catalog, including note cards.