Gentoo Scratchboard

And Some Added Color, As Well...

As some of you may know, I’ve been doing some scratchboard pieces, as of late and I have been enjoying the heck out of it! It seems that my focus has been in the animal kingdom, but my latest piece has a surreal touch to it. I can’t show that one as of yet, as I’ve entered it into a juried show. So, hopefully, more on that soon.

After the bumblebee that I did a few months ago, I focused on a gentoo penguin. I had recently done a penguin encounter at the Detroit Zoo where we could feed and interact with a few different kinds of the flightless birds. The gentoos were my favorite. They were a bit standoffish, but friendly and very curious. They didn’t like to be touched (I tried!), but they seemed to love eye contact. I would have five gentoos on the floor with me just staring into my eyes just a couple of feet away. They wouldn’t take any fish from me at first, but soon warmed up and ate everything that I gave them. They are such cool little critters.

As with the previous bumblebee piece, it all started with a sketch (based on a photo that I took while at the zoo) that was then transferred to the clayboard/scratchboard surface…

Using a red pen helps keep track of where you’re at and not unnecessarily drawing over the same line again and again.

Then, I added color, just a splash of orange as that is pretty much the only color besides their usual black and white bodies.

And, in case you missed it, here’s the bumblebee with color added via water colors.

The scratchboard piece that I recently finished has an aquatic theme, with tentacles, sharks and gulper eels. A friend recommended that I call it The Chomp! As I said, more on that later…

CREATIVE NOTES:

READING: The Naturalist On The River Amazons by Henry Walter Bates Alberto Giacometti: The Museum Of Modern Art, New York by Peter Selz and Alberto Giacometti Moment To Moment by Rod McKuen

LISTENING: Singles 45’s And Under by Squeeze