Cosmic Controls - Gallery Benefit Piece #2

Here's my second piece for Kettle Art's For The Love of Kettle benefit show on Sat, Feb 11th.  Follow the link for details.  Again, everything in the show is a steal for $50 and goes 100% to keeping the non-profit gallery afloat.  

I've been wanting to do a piece like this for quite awhile and hope to do some more on my usual scratchboards, possibly integrating color.  This one is nib pen on 9x12 primed masonite board.  This and the 'Empty Nest' piece were a good excuse to get used to working with a dip pen instead of technical fine tip pens.  Naturally I'm most comfortable on scratchboard and still feel they're the most flexible medium for me, but I enjoying playing with new materials!

Kablam! - mixed media Soda Gallery piece

This is a piece I just finished for the upcoming Fab 50 Show at The Soda Gallery in Dallas on March 1st (50 artists, 50 pieces, $50 each).

This was my first attempt at adding color to a scratchboard, and found that it's remarkably easy to to add watercolor washes to the Ampersand Claybords.  The silver was also an experiment, where I masked out the black drawing with a carefully cut chunk of blue painter's tape.  Spray painting the black was a total disaster, actually, because the paint wouldn't adhere over the silver layer.  I ended up having to manually draw the lines and hand paint the fills.  The painter's tape did a nice job of texturizing the silver when I pulled it off, which was a happy accident.  


Despite my reluctance to integrate color into my drawings, generally, this was successful enough that I suspect I'll be doing more of it down the line.