Traveling around Petoskey

Bob and I went on a short trip to Petoskey, Charlevoix, and Harbor Springs a few weeks ago. It was a very pleasant time with good weather. One highlight of the trip for me was photographing a Common Merganser with chicks resting on a rock along Lake Erie. We saw them at Fisherman's Island State Park.

 The scenery was very peaceful and the towns very clean and inviting for tourists. The area also boasts many, many miles of biking trails.

I spent a bit of time on a small watercolor study at a roadside park just north of Petoskey.

Sterling Storm

 A few weeks ago we had a really stormy and windy day. I drove out to Sterling State Park to see the waves and ended up staying to do a small watercolor study. I got thoroughly soaked and cold, but it was still fun. The waves were probably at about 5 feet with very strong wind and driving rain. I was able to sit under one of the shelters to do the watercolor. Good thing or I would have had no artwork at all.

 Sterling Storm study, watercolor, about 6x8"

Great Egret sheltering on a stormy day.
I also took some of the best egret photos to date: the storm brought a couple of them into a small pond with more shelter and with the gloomy day I was able to get the brilliant white with a dark background. Perfect for scratchboard and with several really nice poses. Then I almost lost them all by accidentally hitting the delete button on my computer. I found a good 'restore' program after a few tries and was able to retrieve them from the camera card. So I learned a new trick and also got the images back. Whew!!

And Two New Scratchboards

End of Day #1: Great Blue Heron
5x7", scratchboard
by Sandra LaFaut © 2015
from my own photo references

End of Day #2: Trumpeter Swan
6x6", scratchboard
by Sandra LaFaut © 2015
from my own photo references

2 New Studies

 "Misty Morning study"
9x12", acrylic on canvas board
by Sandra LaFaut
along the River Raisin, Veteran's Park,
Monroe, Michigan
donated to Monroe Art League

"Life on the River study"
9x12", acrylic on canvas board
by Sandra LaFaut
Tundra Swan and Common Mergansers
along the River Raisin, Veteran's Park,
Monroe, Michigan
from my own reference photos
donated to Monroe Art League

I'll be doing these over in some form for my own use at some point. These are on provided canvas board which I normally never use. I prefer gesso board and possibly oil paint instead of acrylic.

Sun-filled Sparrow Miniature

I have begun doing some miniature paintings in oil. This one is for sale on Daily Paintworks, here

Amazon Images

I'm working away on this set of images from S. America's Amazon region. They are all images from sites like Paint My Photo and wetcanvas except for the mother and child which was taken in the Amazon by my mom and dad. They are 5x7" and done with FW acrylic inks on white Claybord™. The Macaw is finished, the toucan is amost finished. I just started the scratching on the jaguar yesterday. Lots to go!

I also did the parrot in a more traditional scratchboard manner on black board just to see how it looked both ways. 

Keeping Watch Over Sparrows #1: Finished

The subject matter for this is from my own photos manipulated in Photoshop to get a digital image to work from. The sparrows are regulars at my feeder and from a big series of photos I took over a few winter days of strong backlighting. The eye is my own from a selfie I took last year for another project.

My heart has always been in art that portrays spiritual subjects based on Christian themes. This one is based on the theme of God's care for us in Luke 12: 6-7 "Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows."

I see 3 levels of meaning in this as I worked on it:

1. It is God's eye:  God watching over sparrows, and yet the eye is not focused on the birds before him, but on the viewer. He watches over us: we are his precious sparrows.
2. It is a person's eye:  God is outside the image watching the birds, but looking beyond the birds to the person who he dearly loves and cares for.
3. It is your eye or my eye:  As we become more like Jesus in our values, we do as he does and watch over his 'sparrows'.

It's titled #1 because I may do a few more in a series.

WIP Watching Over Sparrows

This one is still a work in progress (WIP). It is 5x7 and on black Ampersand board. So far I have only used a #11 scalpel blade to scratch it. That seems to be my favorite tool right now. I love the very light, soft marks I can make with it.
The subject matter for this is from my own photos manipulated in Photoshop to get a digital image to work from. The sparrows are regulars at my feeder and from a big series of photos I took over a few winter days of strong backlighting. The eye is my own from a selfie I took last year for another project.
My heart has always been in art that portrays spiritual subjects based on Christian themes. This one is based on the theme of God's care for us in Luke 12: 6-7 "Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows."
In this one the eye represents God watching over sparrows, and yet the eye is not focused on the birds before him, but on the viewer. He watches over us: we are his precious sparrows.
I have a fair bit of work to do on this still, but will be posting along the way or when I finish it with a good scan. This is just from my phone camera.
I am open to doing more with this, maybe going into a small series. This started as a study for a larger piece.

Northern Flicker - Finished

"Northern Flicker" 2014

6x8" 

scratchboard on black Ampersand board

Done with #11 scalpel 

Reference photo from Rodney Campbell on Paint My Photo

There was a previous post about this one and the process. I used a board that had previously been scratched and scraped off. It was an interesting experiment but I won't be doing that again. Every little mark in the board became highlighted when I sprayed the finish coats on it. It's not totally horrible, but the board doesn't have the beautiful pristine black that is normally a scratchboard characteristic. 

In this image I heavily retouched it using Photoshop to get the rich blacks again. I would probably sell the image, but at a discounted price. With the retouching though I can still offer this as a print. 

So, lesson learned - don't reuse boards in this way.

Experimenting with a Northern Flicker

I guess you could call this one a personal challenge on starting with a goofy board which once had a traced portrait start, then the inked and heavily scratched start of a red-tailed hawk, then totally scraped and re-inked with a brush and now has the flicker started on it. You can see what happened with the white chalk and the fingerprints (the ink wasn't wet but still seemed to grab the prints like a magnet) and also the heavy brush texture of the ink.

I like what the brush texture is doing in the background - it's a bit treeish. And the fingerprints, which would not come off btw, are now incorporated as diffused light. So it's coming along in an interesting way. If it finishes well I'll be happy, if it doesn't I'll still have learned a few more things. I'm having fun with it. This is a 6x8" board that started its journey as a white Claybord. The reference photo is from Rodney Campbell over on Paint My Photo.

The heavy ink is a bit of a challenge to scratch in some places and some of the vertical brush marks are visible through the bird, but it doesn't bother me artistically since it is a texture over the entire board.

I probably won't do color on this.

Bald Eagle: Finished

Bald Eagle, 5x7" on black Ampersand scratchboard. From my own reference photo of an eagle at the Toledo Zoo.

2 Works in Progress: Red Tailed Hawk, Bald Eagle

 Red Tailed Hawk, 5x7" on white Claybord

Bald Eagle, 5x7 on black Ampersand scratchboard