On Working in More than One Media

I have moved from working in mainly scratchboard for over a year to doing pastels and acrylic or oil miniature paintings. I've been thinking about why that is, and what my goals for each would be.

1. Scratchboard: I love the extreme detail that is possible with scratchboard. A lot of mine are in black and white so the focus is on light, values, and lost edges - not color. On the downside, since it is a very slow process with many layers of diluted ink it takes a long time. Working from life is not much of a reality for most scratchboard artists. Working from photos can be a problem for me. The tendency can be to just copy it instead of interpreting it. Sometimes I feel the need for an alternative to force me out of it.

2. Pastel: That need for an alternative has led me take up pastel again. My #1 goal for pastels is to practice a much more impressionistic way of working. I love the textures and looseness of pastel painting. I also often prefer things other than brushes for my work: scratchboard tools, pencils, pastel sticks, etc.   I also enjoy the color possibilities of pastels. With my limited amount of colors in pastel I have to think more about what colors and values I can get to make the image work within those limits. That is a very good thing! Again, it forces me away from copying the photo too literally. My goal for pastel is to gain enough studio skill that I can move into plein air painting. I tried it a bit this summer, but hadn't yet gained enough of the basic skills to succeed. I'm still working towards a more impressionistic look in them - I suspect I'll be fighting that battle for quite a while!

3. Miniature Acrylic/Oil Paintings:  Sometimes I just like to paint and I am enchanted by miniature paintings. This is another area that I became aware of within the last year. I have looked at lots of miniature shows online and studied the guidelines for art enough to have an understanding and appreciation for it. (Minatures have the goal of 1/6 scale or lower, a very flat surface - no impasto, are normally quite realistic, and need to hold up well to magnification since they are meant to be held in the hand and looked at through a magnifying glass.) Plus, I don't currently have enough sales or wall space for larger art. Miniatures, for now, will be a bit more in the hobby stage, just working on them occasionally. As I get a few finished and framed I may submit work to some miniature shows. I'll set next year as my goal. It seems a lot of the very good shows run in the fall and winter.

I'm hoping all these things will mesh together to help me grow in expressing myself as an artist.

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

Crowned with Glory

"Crowned with Glory"
8x10"
Scratchboard
by Sandra LaFaut


For more info or to purchase 
visit My Daily Paintworks

Sunlit Begonia

Sunlit Begonia
5x7" Scratchboard
by Sandra LaFaut
from flowers I grew last summer

For more information or to purchase 
visit My Daily Paintworks

Power at Peace

"Power at Peace"
9x12" on black Scratchbord™
From my own reference photo taken at the Toledo Zoo this past summer.

This artwork won an Honorable Mention award in drawing at the Bedford Arts for Our Future show, Bedford, Michigan.


The photo session that day had a memorable moment. I was standing inside the 3 sided glass viewing area with my back against the glass as I waited, camera up, for one of the tigers to walk towards me as he paced his enclosure. I heard a thump behind me and when I turned around a minute or so later there was a muddy foot print smeared down the glass beginning right where the back of my head was. One of the other tigers had hoped for lunch - me!

Double Dogs

Lucy and Strider finished. Both 5x7" on black Ampersand scratchboard colored in a few places with FW Acrylic inks. These are not sprayed yet, which will enrich the blacks and even out the colors.

Animal Commissions

I'm working towards being more prepared to do some pet portraits; mostly dogs and cats for now. I have 2 of my own in the works as samples and am hoping to get out to a dog show with a table in a few weeks. I'm still waiting on word from them about that. In the meantime I have these a bunch of these ordered as 4x6 prints from Snapfish at 1penny per print. Not a bad deal! Cheaper than business cards by far.

 

The two I'm working on right now are both my dogs, both black on black. Lucy in the sun, and Strider the German shepherd.  Both are 5x7.  Both will have just a very little bit of color - eyes, collars, tongue, etc.

Tiger: Power and Peace

This fellow is from one of my zoo photos this spring. I really love the pose and the way his head is resting on his paw. It is a 9x12" scratchboard on black Ampersand board. My largest one so far. It went along very well for a bigger board and I really enjoyed doing it.
Right now I'm working in color on the Amazon set, but I'm looking forward to doing more black and white. I can't even imagine adding color to this one.

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.

Holding Court

"Holding Court" 2014
7x5" scratchboard on black Ampersand board
Colored with Ampersand inks
From my own reference photo
Done mostly with a #11 scalpel blade and light use of a fiberglass brush to soften fur in some places.

Barely Awake

"Barely Awake" 2014
5x7" Scratchboard on black Ampersand board
From my own reference photo
Scratched mostly with #11 scalpel and #11 Exacto blades. Highlights in white with a scoop shaped scratchboard tool.

Mesmerized

"Mesmerized" 2014

Scratchboard

9x12" on black Ampersand board

From my own reference photo of my backyard fish

done mostly with a #11 scalpel and a #11 exacto blade

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

Eye Am Watching

"Eye Am Watching"

8x10"

Black Ampersand scratchboard

done with #11 scalpel and a few other tools

colored with watercolors

Reference photos from African Wildlife Reference, used with permission

My goal on this was mainly to practice eyes, with the bonus of different types of fur. I used Photoshop Elements 11 to crop the original photos and make a composition out of this. I started out with all small rectangular images like the zebra once I started the artwork found I didn't like it that way. Most of the images were added to later to blend them together more. I am happy with this one, but if I ever redo it I would use a larger board and move the animals apart a bit more to blend them together better and leave a bit more black (negative) space.

It still has to have it's spray coating, but I'm waiting for warmer weather to spray. My studio is pretty cold right now. 

Chipmunk

Chipmunk

5x7 on black Ampersand scratchboard

most of the work done with a #11 scalpel

Done from my own reference photo taken out near Cody, Wyoming a couple of years ago.

I may still add color to this but I wanted to get a good scan of the black and white version first.

This was a nice change from doing people. 

My Sister, My Friend

"My Sister, My Friend"

8x8" on Ampersand Black Scratchboard
These two little gals are very precious to my husband and I and just as sweet as they look.
And they do get along this well. They really love one another.
May it last a lifetime!

Ashleigh

Ashleigh is the daughter of some friends of mine. As a drawing this one is just weird to work on. She has a high forehead anyways and it is  exaggerated with her head tilted down like that. She also is framed in the photograph in a halo of very light blond hair. I haven't done one like this before but it seems all that light hair will have to be added in last so I can get the skin values correct. So I feel like I'm working on a bald little gal so far.

I really wish I had an airbrush for the skin shading on the forehead though. When I add ink washes it gets splotchy and I have to work back into it a lot. I think I'm going to have to drybrush on it to get it a bit darker without having to rescratch it all.

Update:

Here it is as a finished work. See what a difference the hair makes. The color difference is just a scanning and color correction issue. I forgot to adjust the yellow to allow for the warmer tones of the Ampersand boards. The top colors are probably more accurate. This is not sprayed with a varnish yet. I'm waiting for warmer weather to spray the boards so I can open windows.

Jen Finished

Jen, 6x6"  black Ampersand board.