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Tiger – Scratchboard in Progress

Posted on by Amy Stauffer in GENERAL, SCRATCHBOARD, WILDLIFE

Information on this work should have been forthcoming some time ago as this piece is nearly halfway to completion.  I had in mind a portrait of a tiger that would be very confrontational and predatory, with raking light and strong chiaroscuro.  Wildlife art is flush with romantic portrayals of apex predators and I wanted something a little more sinister.  This is ambitious for me as I don’t have any images in my reference collection that would fit that description.  This composition is largely a conglomerate of at least a half dozen images; none of which featured precisely the type of lighting I was seeking; zoos tend not to be good locations for dramatic lighting.  From studying multiple images, I hope to accurately model the bone structure of this animal so the shadows falling across it’s face will be convincing.  The side to the viewer’s right should be lost in shadow compared to the lit half on the left.

Again, this is a scratchboard, 14X11.  Unfortunately I can’t positively I.D. the subspecies since I’ve sampled from multiple images, but it closely resembles a Bengal.  Click on the image for viewing at a higher resolution.

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New Scratchboard – Grey Wolf

Posted on by Amy Stauffer in SCRATCHBOARD, WILDLIFE

This is my largest and most ambitious scratchboard thus far.  I seriously underestimated how much work would be necessary to nearly cover such a large board and it became far more involved than I had anticipated.  However, I am quite pleased with the results and this piece is now framed and ready for the coming show at my gallery.  The title makes this a little politicized, especially for someone living near Yellowstone where these animals have been reintroduced.  Perhaps they are responsible for taking the occasional animal from a rancher’s herd, but they are not the sinister villains that popular sentiment would have them be.  Wolves are sorely misunderstood animals, with stories like Red Riding Hood and some primeval fear we have elicited by their chilling howl.  Yet, in their social structure, they are not unlike ourselves, more so than any other major predator.  We don’t need to wipe out our apex predators in order to live in peace with them.

We Must Not Be Enemies

12X16

Little Green Frog

Posted on by Amy Stauffer in GENERAL

Here’s the newest in my Little Friend series.  I have a great fondness for frogs, they have so much personality, for something cold-blooded that is.  This is the second installment in what will be quite a few more of this species.  I felt like the proverbial light bulb finally went off and I managed to tackle the look of a smooth surface on the bamboo stem.  Now I just need to apply the same technique to the next frogs.

Little Friend II – Red-Eyed Green Tree Frog, Scratchboard, 5X7

Masked Weaver – Finally Finished

Posted on by Amy Stauffer in GENERAL, OIL, WILDLIFE

This update has been a long time in coming.  I finished this piece quite a while ago and it is already framed and on display at the Art Plus Gallery in W. Reading, Pa.  I’m quite happy with the result, which came far easier than the last bird I had used as a subject.  I have decided that for the time being, there will be no more scratch board works of birds for me, only oils – it’s far less aggravating.  The woven nest was time consuming but caused me less grief than I had expected.

Interrupted – Southern Masked African Weaver

11X14, Oil on Masonite.

Masked Weaver Update

Posted on by Amy Stauffer in OIL, WILDLIFE

I’m long overdue for an  update for this project.  It’s moving along nicely and I’m enjoying working with the new Rembrandt oils colors that I purchased, as they have a far more creamy consistency with a higher pigment load than the W&N brand that I had previously been using, which could be very oily.  They are more expensive than W&N but you get what you pay for and the difference is making my life easier.  This looks like it’s rather far along but there is still so much more to be done.  I need to model the lights and darks in the grasses a great deal yet; they are still only a refined underpainting and appear very flat.  I want them to really look like a dimensional, tangled mess and that will require much more work.  And I’ve only just started working on the bird.  I’m hoping to capture the “business first” attitude that I remember from these guys; nothing is more important to him than finishing that nest and the viewer is but a rude interruption.

I’ve enjoyed working on these far less familiar species.  Charismatic animals like elephants and lions tend to get more coverage and the finished paintings certainly attract more attention.  Unfortunately, so many paintings have been done of lions and their ilk, they have become almost cliche.  It’s time for the less notable but equally precious species to have their day in the sun.

Southern Masked Weaver; 14X11, Oil on Masonite.

Masked Weaver

Posted on by Amy Stauffer in OIL, WILDLIFE

This is another work in progress, one with which I am quite happy.  It’s a male southern masked weaver, native to Africa, who paused in his work just long enough to contemplate the camera.  This is going to be a good exercise in patience.  I knew heading into this project that the grasses of the nest would be tedious and frustrating so I’ve devoted a lot of focus to making them look believable.  If Carl Brenders can render a thousand blades of grass and leaves, then I can force myself to do this.  I’m learning the hard way that there is no short cut to good realist wildlife, I just need to take my time.

The first image is the Imprimatura which is just a stain of the white of the board with some basic darks and highlights painted in.  The second image is the start of my underpainting.  I have about five thin glazes of paint over the green background, which was necessary to get a nice smooth color transition and I am on my first layer with the grasses in the nest.

This is oil on masonite, 14X11.

Macaw Update

Posted on by Amy Stauffer in SCRATCHBOARD, WILDLIFE

After more work on the macaw pair I finished the first layer of scratching and washed ink over the entire board.  The ink I’m using is Ampersand’s brand of scratchboard inks which are thin out of the bottle; like caligraphy inks.  Allegedly they are specially formulated to blend seamlessly over the black india ink once varnish is sprayed on the board.  For now, any overpainting is very obvious, especially in the third photo, but that will be invisible by the time the piece is done.  They do blend well, but I’ve never compared them to how any other paint would perform for the same task.  Some scratchboard artists have been using acrylic paint of colored pencils and I hope to try those myself sometime.

These pictures show the board after the first layer of ink, second scratching, and finally second layer of ink, which was a lighter green/yellow than the previous color.  The third picture suffered from a lot of glare and the black looks washed out.

New Macaw Scratchboard

Posted on by Amy Stauffer in SCRATCHBOARD, WILDLIFE

 I decided for my next scratchboard that the subject would be avian.  I had seen other scratchboard artists do work with birds as the subject and really liked the effect.  I certainly  underestimated how time consuming this would be.  Feathers have thus far been the most difficult thing I’ve attempted to render in either oil or scratchboard.  This is on Ampersand Scratchboard, and the size is 14X11.  It will be a pair of Millitary Macaws, which are native to Central America

This first image is from several days ago and is a crop of the first bird’s face, the color cast here is very blue, but it’s a good closeup of the detail. 

 

This image is where I am currently at in the process for this piece and shows the entire board.  Although this does appear to be nearly finished, this is just the first layer of scratching.  I am planning to color this piece so after this stage is complete I will ink most of it with a dark green that will be the middle tone/shadow colors and then will go over it again several times to give it more definition.  It looks really flat now because almost everything has been scratched without paying much attention to the shadows and highlights that would indicate what is called “turning form”, or the way color and shadows change as light falls on a three dimensional object.  It is very difficult in scratchboard to create areas that are simultaenously detailed and also in shadow.  Middle tones can be achieved by reducing the density of scratches, but that reduces the clarity of the image and it tends to make the light appear very harsh.  That can be effective for some subjects with dramatic lighting but I want the light have a softer, more natural feel in this one.  Once I ink it for the first time the areas that should be in shadow will appear much darker.  For the finished peice it will help create the illusion of areas that are dimly lit, but that still have discernable detail, much like the eye can pick out detail in shadows in real life.

Welcome Spring

Posted on by Amy Stauffer in FLOWERS AND PLANTS, GENERAL, PHOTOGRAPHY

 

The winter of 2010 – 2011 has felt bitterly long and cold.  Now that the warmth of the sun has finally returned to the Northeast United States I am finding myself being lifted from my sluggish winter doldrums.  I never realize just how wearisome winter has become until the first signs of the promise of spring.  With that comes renewed energy to devote in the studio.  I have many ideas, some of which may get me in trouble and are more extravagant than my abilities, but at least some of them should result in worthy pieces of artwork.  I am currently working on a scratchboard of two green military macaws; posts on that will be forthcoming.  In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this image of my daffodils poking up through the mulch.  The picture was taken with my new Canon 40D, a delightful instrument, with which I hope to capture many of the wonders of spring.

Hello world!

Posted on by Amy Stauffer in GENERAL

As I’ve been growing as an artist, I’ve recognized the value of having an online presence.  I trust this will be an exciting journey that I hope you can join with me.  Please be patient with my sloppy and incomplete formating as this site is still under construction.  Although I am liking the interface WordPress uses for editing, the learning curve seems to be a little steep.