NELVIA'SART.COM

                                        HAPPY 4TH OF JULY - INDEPENDENCE DAY Atlanta is having the most beautiful day, for the absolute middle of summer, when we have been well over 95F multiple days we woke up to 66 degrees, lesser humidity and a light breeze and so it is wonderful.  Not sure how much of this is courtesy of the hurricane that went up the coast these last few days.  But it is sure wonderful and must be enjoyed while it lasts. I thought my horse might be close to done, but as I see this on screen I am finding a number of things I am going to want to tweak.  But at least he is to the point where I can have him on the board just to look at for a bit.  1) Might have to do a bit more with the grass, I only wanted a sprinkle so that he looked grounded so ...

  Here is the start of my new scratchboard picture from Steve Lyddon of PMP, of a draft horse.  My big challenge here is to take a very dark horse and make him stand out from the dark background.  This is a 5"x7" scratch and right now I am trying to color with pastels, but not happy with the look.  So might dust it off and try it with watercolor pencils.  Think I am a little frustrated so am going to stop on this for a while and work on a photo reference by my husband from the Birminham Alabama zoo of a couple of juvenile elephants - boys of course!!! Thanks for stopping by and hope you are having a great painting week.

Ok, here is the Car Grille scratchboard completed.  Again was a very unusual subject for me, but I was attracted to the sky reflections on the black paint and the way the lights played over the chrome areas.  I enjoyed the process.  Not knowing a car intimately I was able to focus more on just shapes and hope it came together.  I definitely am going to continue to pursue these scratchboards and am thinking about using multiple boards to complete a picture - have to think a bit more about that but kind of like that idea.  This will sit on the board now for a few days - I haven't sprayed/sealed any of my scratches yet, but have gotten some floater frames so think I'll put them up and hang them in a place I can continue to live with them for a while.  Hilda, these floater frames don't have glass.  Jury is out with scratch experts on whether to frame with or without glass.  I am going to see if I can get a scratch juried into a show in Ju...

  Well can't really decide what I want to do, I had pulled 7 reference shots of things I wanted to work on.  So am going to start several of them and then work on what I feel like at the moment.  However, I looked at them all and thought, what was I thinking as some of them are pretty complex now that I really look at them. Even though I have the pig CP piece which is in process I am getting called to start another scratchboard.  I am finding that each scratchboard is so different as to how it takes the inks, this one is showing the marks I make with the brush pen and also you can see the graphite outline that I am using as a guideline.  I see things already that I will need to correct, but am remembering this is the first layers and shadows still need to be added down the road.  While I am apprehensive about doing a car which I know little about, I felt I should give it a try.  I really like the photo which is from Paul Jones at PMP. Ok, I'...

Well I think I am ready to call this scratchboard piece, 11"x14", completed unless someone sees something glaring that needs to be corrected.  Only thing I am concerned about is whether or not I need to make the bottom stripe on the chest area smoother to match the others in the neck and face area.  I think the answer is going to be yes, but your thoughts please.  Again I want to thank Gary Jones, a wildlife photographer superb, on the PMP site for this wonderful reference picture that I flipped to create this view.  I actually thought that turning it this way would help me with my natural right-handed strokes.  My husband, on showing it absolutely hated the way it is cropped, so I am thinking everyone else will like it just fine.  I finished this off with a bit more pastel highlights in the black stripes as well, just to add a little color interest and jazz the black up just a bit.  Still unsure if I should spray and seal the entire p...

In life there are times when you are very thankful for things you usually take for granted.  That just happened to me, I am thankful for being able to read and being persistent on the internet.  You all know there is so much on the internet these days that you can either watch YouTube or read something to learn just about anything.  I am a pretty voracious reader and for folks who I really follow and do blogs I read all the historical info, catching names of people they know and techniques that don't come up in queries - another kind of networking I guess.  Drives my hubby nuts ........ (is that a bad thing?) In working on this piece I came across a scratchboard artist who works with adding pastel dust on his scratchboard - John Hopman of Tuscan AZ.  Well eureka, the lightbulb went off - A BREAK THRU - I was off and running, excited because I love pastel and have a boatload of colors.   I thought I wanted a softer color transition ...

Well he or she is coming along.  Got the neck and chest areas scoped out, you can see the black in the muzzle, and the in between area is the flank and back area.  Still haven't figured out how to do two scans and then stitch them together, so the entire Zebra is not actually shown here.  Am going to continue to stick with the getting the white stripes in and the nose area, then coming back in to shade.  Shading as I am reading is really important in scratch work and I am having a problem making myself wait as I want to get the more 3D effects now rather than waiting to get it all white and add back in.  I am constantly experimenting with strokes on the white strips and fear that I may have overworked the ones I have done in more fully so might have to try to add back in light wash and then stroke out again so it isn't so flat.  All I can say is the more you do reveals how much you have left to learn.  Thanks goodness, as it would be boring to think ...