On Entering Art Shows

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!

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The Results of a Busy December

I knew I hadn't posted anything here in a while, but didn't realize it had been an entire month! That's because December was busy. In addition to the usual Christmas season hustle and bustle, I had two pet portraits that I'd promised to have finished in time for Christmas since they were gifts. I also had an illustration project to get underway. I completed the two portraits on time, made good progress on the illustrations (6 of 11 are complete) and made progress on some other portraits I've started.

One of the two portraits is of Winston, a chihuahua mix. Winston had a major health scare recently when he ate something he shouldn't have, but he pulled through and is still going strong at 14.

Winston's portrait is a small drawing (an ACEO) in pencil on Stonehenge paper.





ACEOs are small-format artworks that always measure 2.5" x 3.5". ACEO stands for "Art Cards, Editions & Originals". To see more of them, visit this page of my web site. Some were commissions, others were drawings I did to list on eBay or elsewhere. You can visit this page to see ACEOs in other media (color pencil, scratchboard, ink, etc.)

The other portrait is of Bella, a pit bull/rottweiler mix, painted in my Petzazz style in watercolor on Yupo. The portrait is 8" x 8".





Bella is one of 5 portraits I've done for the same family. I drew a small pencil portrait of her previously, along with a pencil portrait of their other dog, Bruno - see those drawings in this blog post. I've also painted Petzazz portraits of Bruno and their other dog Floyd - see those portraits here.

As for the illustration project, it's a number of drawings of birds & mammals for signs that will be installed at the Bureau of Land Management's Curtz Lake area in Alpine County, CA. Here are two of the completed illustrations, click on either image to see larger versions and find out more.

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Chihuahua-palooza!

These are the last two of six individual chihuahua portraits for my clients. As I posted previously, I had done a portrait of their first four chihuahuas all in one drawing (scroll down to the bottom to see that drawing).

Then, they added two new chihuahuas to the mix and decided to have individual portraits done of all six dogs. Click on any of the following names to see their portraits: Mija, Reina, Niña and Chica (I guess I never posted Chica's portrait to my blog, so the link will take you to the page from my web site).


Mora - ink on scratchboard, 5" x 5.5"



The reference photos in color and greyscale



Aime - ink on scratchboard, 5" x 5.4"
In case you're wondering, she's a chihuahua-yorkie mix


The reference photos in color and greyscale

Both portraits are in the same shades of warm grey (from the India ink washes), but Mora's is very light, so I had to do a bit of work in Photoshop for it to show up well. The scanned version I've posted here is a bit darker than the real portrait (and a bit more yellow, but I didn't bother to change the color cast of the scanned file). The nice thing on the originals is that not only is there a lovely warm tone, there is a lot of texture which comes from the scratches I make in the ink on the scratchboard surface. It's really hard to capture that depth of detail in a scan of the lighter animals. But you can get an idea of that texture in the close up I posted with Mija's portrait.



The first four dog drawing

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Mija the Chihuahua - New Portrait

This drawing of Mija is number 4 of 6 in a set of portraits of the chihuahuas belonging to one of my clients.


Ink on Scratchboard, 5" x 5.5"


Detail of Mija's Portrait

Below are the color & greyscale photos I used for reference. Mija is missing quite a few teeth, so her tongue hangs out. The photo her owners liked best didn't have enough tongue visible, so they chose another photo for me to use for the tongue reference.






Mija was part of a four chihuahua portrait that I did a couple of years ago. Since that portrait was finished, my clients added 2 more chihuahuas to their family and wanted individual portraits of the 2 new dogs and new portraits of the original four. Of course, I was more than happy to oblige - repeat business is a very good thing! For the new portraits of the original four, we decided to use photos that showed different head angles. Mija was just a baby in the first portrait (bottom right).

This is the original 4 dog portrait in ink on scratchboard:

One of them is a chihuahua/yorkie terrier mix.

You can see the new portrait of Reina (top left) here. I still have to do the new portraits of Moira & Aime.

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Canine Visitors

Our well pump went out on Friday. That meant no water all weekend. It was like camping in our own home (but it wasn't fun). We survived with bottled water, hand sanitizer, pizza for dinner and water in 5 gallon buckets from the pond for flushing toilets. On Saturday afternoon, we visited our dads in Sacramento to take showers and do laundry.

Mark of Tri-County Pump got us back up and running early this afternoon. The old pump had lived 20 years - way beyond the expected lifespan - so we now have a brand new pump. And best of all, we have water again. I can wash my hands whenever I want and no more hauling buckets of water into the house!

In addition to his human assistant, Mark brought his two chihuahuas and his young chocolate lab (Luda) with him. The little tan chihuahua sisters were trotting through the carport when I went out to meet Mark. Luda was in a crate in the back of the truck. I heard him whining and asked about him - Mark wondered if it would be ok to let the dog out. Of course it was ok! Luda made a beeline for our pond - as any water-loving lab would. He ran circles around the property - full of bouncy energy and joy - and he splashed around in the pond a few times. I pulled out one of Magpie's tennis balls for him. I kept Magpie in the house, she's not too sure about strangers, so she was better off staying inside.

Never one to miss a photo opp, I grabbed our little digital camera (as opposed to exposing my D-SLR to a wet and enthusiastic dog) and got some nice shots of Luda eyeing the coveted tennis ball.





I only got photos of one of the chihuahuas, but there's a photo of them with Mark and his wife on this page of their web site.

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Reina the Chihuahua - New Portrait

I recently finished this portrait of Reina and delivered it earlier today.
Ink on Scratchboard, 5" x 5.5"



Below are the color & greyscale photos I used for reference. The brown area at the bottom is part of her leg, so I replaced that with black which would represent her body in that area.



Reina was part of a four chihuahua portrait that I did a couple of years ago. Since that portrait was finished, my clients added 2 more chihuahuas to their family and wanted individual portraits of the 2 new dogs and new portraits of the original four. Of course, I was more than happy to oblige - repeat business is a very good thing! For the new portraits of the original four, we decided to use photos that showed different head angles, so Reina's new portrait is a 3/4 profile.

This is the original 4 dog portrait in ink on scratchboard:

One of them is a chihuahua/yorkie terrier mix.


The portraits of the 2 new chihuahuas, completed last year, also ink on scratchboard:



And a photo of all 6:

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