The International Society of Scratchboard Artists 2012 Exhibition is available for preview. There are some incredible artworks displayed and I literally cannot wait to get over to Glen Ellen in California to see the actual show. If you’d like to see why I’m so excited, click the link below and enjoy.
http://www.scratchboardsociety.com/exhibition-preview.html
The show runs for the whole of July and there is an artists opening (which I am flying over for) on the 7th July.
As can be seen on the International Society of Scratchboard Artists website, the deadline for entries to the Inaugural show in Glen Ellen, in the beautiful Sonoma Valley wine growing region of California, just outside San Francisco, closes on the 25th April. I have my entries in and hope many other people do too. It’s going to be a great show. I’ll be flying from Australia to attend the artists opening day at the venue, The ARTHouse Gallery (the link I’ve provided takes you straight to the work of Master Scratchboard Artist and all round cool gal Diana Lee, already represented by the gallery). This will be on the 7th July, and I will then be attending the two days of workshops where seven scratchboard artists (including the legendary Charlie Ewing) will share their techniques (I will be doing a two hour segment myself). This will be at the Sebastapol Center For the Arts on the 8th and 9th. I can’t wait to meet old and new friends and learn from them. Of course, we’ll get to see a reasonable chunk of the west coast on holiday either side of the show.
Here’s my latest piece, a small scratchboard sketch of a Cape Buffalo, and I’m currently working on a series of ‘in your face’ kangaroos, along the lines of my previous emu series
I see a lot of wildlife art based around the “Big Five” or other large animals that the public identifies with. Tigers, lions, leopards and elephants are staples of many artists, and I have drawn or painted them many times too. But I believe it’s a mistake to rely on these. The natural world is jam packed with wonderful fauna (and flora) ranging from massive to miniscule.
My dad worte a book about East African reptiles and amphibians and if he had lived longer, he was going to write a second book called “Not only Elephants”. He was of the same opinion as me and this book was going to be dedicated to the animals that people often missed like shrews, zorillas, tortoises, rock hyrax and so many others. Tourists used to come to East Africa in search of the big five (elephant, black rhino, leopard, lion and buffalo – grouped together because they were the most dangerous animals to hunt) and in their fascination of these large animals, they often missed so much beauty that flashed by them as they motored along in their zebra striped wildlife viewing vehicles (painted in stripes more for the appeal to the tourists than the camouflage they afforded the vehicle).
I was in a similar vehicle recently, and some of my fellow occupants would be staring into the distance for a sighting of an elephant or leopard whilst missing lilac breasted rollers and malachite kingfishers. They would look at me as if I was mad as I turned over stones looking for lizards, scorpions and snakes. Ok, maybe I am mad but look at the smaller creatures in our world and I defy anyone to prove to me that the larger creatures are more wonderful.
Thus, I also believe it’s our duty as wildlife artists to research and educate people about these animals. I’ve recently been challenged to move towards the less fashionable animals so here are a couple of new pieces. Meerkats are quite popular nowadays, in part due to that amazing TV series “Meerkat Manor”. Here’s my take on a meerkat looking out for predators. I’ve included specks of dirt on the meerkat’s head to show that, whilst they are always alert for danger, they are constantly digging for food and shelter.
And an even less fashionable animal, an iconic Australian species. The grey kangaroo isn’t depicted too often in art simply because they look so cute and therefore artists shy away from them. I do too but I managed to coax one to come right up to my face and I caught this distorted “pleased to meet you” kind of look.
Here are a couple of scratchboards from my time in Etosha National Park in Namibia. The first is a group of Elephants around the waterhole at Halali. It’s called “Total Protection” because of way the young are protected by the adults. It’s created by fibreglass brush removing the ink in a soft focus fashion, then adding ink back in (diluted in an airbrush), re-scratching, re-inking, re-scratching, re-inking etc as many times as it takes to get the effect I need. Finally I’ve sprayed the whole thing sepia to keep the monochrome effect but also add that little bit of old time feel to it and the sunshine and dust of Africa.
“Total Protection”
The second piece is a young zebra trotting through the water after its mum in a piece called “Water Baby”. It’s from a zebra at the waterhole at Okaukuejo.
“Water Baby”
So why is Etosha a strange place? Well, it’s an extremely dry place. It has a vast salt pan which is eerie and beautiful. The park has very little precipitation and as such it doesn’t support a lot of the animals you’d expect. It has no hippo, no buffalo and no crocodiles. Nip across the border into Botswana and in the Okavango Delta or Chobe National Park you’ll encounter as many hippos, buffalo or crocodiles as you might wish to see. Here’s a croc I photographed at Chobe. Believe it or not, this is in the wild and I’m not using a zoom. I’m literally a metre away from this large croc. However, I’m in a boat and it isn’t. It’s also just been fast alseep and is simply releasing heat through it’s open jaws so I’m neither being brave nor foolhardy.
So what’s going on in Etosha? You’d expect, with all that water in my pieces of art, to see all of the missing animals. No, these are man made waterholes, specifically created from boreholes to draw the animals to them in large numbers so we can get a good look at them. It works too. There were so many elephants at Halali, scores of zebra coming to drink all day at Okaukuejo, and at another waterhole, Namutoni, the best you can come to seeing a large predator is the python that swims there yet the air is thick with birdlife.
Is Etosha worth the trip? You bet it is! Not only do you get to see an abundance of wildlife at these waterholes, but if you venture out into the arid areas, you’ll see plenty from little dikdiks to the gorgeous lilac breasted roller, male oryx sparring for dominance, lion and many other animals. If your main love is monkeys however, you’ll be disappointed. There are none at all. In fact the campground pests aren’t monkeys here but go-away birds, red-billed hornbills and jackals – what a fabulous camping experience when those are considered pests!!
Me on the quiet and eeire Etosha Pan
Sometimes you just have to do a quickie. This is a small (8″ x 10″) scratchboard of a zebra from one of my Africa trips. Simple process, do the drawing, remove all of the ink from the white stripes with a fibreglass brush so you are back to pure black and white, then use an airbrush (or use a large watercolour brush) to add a layer of diluted Indian ink over the whole thing, wait til it dries and use the fibreglass brush again to pull out some highlights. Repeat the ‘pushing and pulling’ process of airbrush and highlights until you have the desired 3D roundness you need to make the zebra look like you want it to look.
My photo of it has caught some glare here and there unfortunately but you get the idea.
Patrick Hedges 