Soft Spoken. Scratchboard, 8 x 8 inches. Copyright 2009, Tania Nault.
I had a real struggle with the mane. It never occured to me when I started this one, but how do you depict an area, and an important one at that, in black, against a black background. I was saved in this instance because this lovely horse had some natural areas of grey/white strands in her mane.
She’ll be at the Regina Federation of Artists Spring Show and Sale this weekend, Wascana Centre, 2900 Wascana Drive, so please do come by and take a peek at her.
I just started this board from a reference photo on Stock.XCHNG by photograper Sue B:
Dappled Buckskin, work in progress. Scratchboard, 8 x 8 inches. Copyright 2009, Tania Nault.
I love the range of light and dark in the reference photo, but I think what really drew me in is the soft, gentle look in this horse’s eye.
Here’s an illustration of how following the advice of a good critique can help you improve your work. Now, I live in a relatively small city (Regina, Saskatchewan: population less than 200,000). And I only know of a handful of scratchboard artists in my area, something that makes getting a good critique by people who understand the medium something of a challenge. What’s an artist to do? WetCanvas! to the rescue!! Never been, you say… pity. Composition is composition, whatever your medium, but when you have a technical problem, like say, how to make the paint you put on your scratchboard horse look like actual paint….
Painted Warrior, work in progress. Scratchboard, 9 x 12 inches. Copyright 2009, Tania Nault.
That’s another problem entirely. The critique I received on WC! from more than one artists was, “Looks good, but it looks like the paint areas are floating above the horse.”
Hmm… not exactly the look I was going for. So, ask and ye shall receive, another artist, Diana Lee, rescued me with her advice on how to make the paint look more like an actual texture rather than just a colour:
Painted Warrior, work in progress. Scratchboard, 9 x 12 inches. Copyright 2009, Tania Nault.
I think it’s a big improvement - it looks like someone smeared paint on this horse, rather than simply photoshopping the colour overtop. I also added some of the blue to the shadow areas just to tie the whole thing together. I’ve set it aside for a couple days and will head on to the next thing.
I’m pretty much done the cowboy boots themselves and have started work on a simple background for them - I think the ref is of a wood floor or deck?
Cowboy Boots, work in progress. Scratchboard, 10 x 8 in. Copyright 2008, Tania Nault.
At any rate, I can see one thing with the floor I already don’t like (no shadow where the boot touches the floor) but I need to set this aside for a couple days and finish a couple boards for the Art Gallery of Regina Art Galore Show. More on that anon….
Cowboy Boots, work in progress. Scratchboard, 10 x 8 in. Copyright 2008, Tania Nault.
As you can see, I’ve made some progress with my scratchboard cowboy boots. I’m really pleased with how well this is turning out. Next week when the Agribition is in town I’ll be heading out to get more reference photos with a Western flavour. I think what I’m learning from this piece is that what I really like, no, what I love about this medium isn’t necessarily the subject matter so much as it is the play of light and dark, the illusion of textures and dimension and depth.
