Ristra Roja Up Close Size:  12.5 x 18 cm (5 x 7 in) Medium:  Scratchboard Support:  Scratchbord Notes:  Colored with Ampersand Scratchbord Inks I wanted to do a “quick”* scratch work that didn’t involve fur or feathers which are the scratch artist’s bread and butter. I also wanted to shy away from metal and/or glass, as those are often the non-fauna go-tos. Being that I reside in New Mexico, and I happen to have a ristra** available for studies, I opted to make it my victim. Breaking from my usual tradition, I framed the chiles tightly so I’d have to fill the board. I also wanted to play with coloring a scratchboard like most seem to: with Ampersand inks applied with a brush. When I color a scratchboard, my preference is to apply any of a variety of mediums (ink, watercolor, acrylic, etc.) using an airbrush. While I’d practiced doing the usual brush-and-ink method, I’d never actually committed to it with intent. A style choice I made was to do the majority of the work using hatching, instead of cross-hatching. While I often opt for hatching in any case, this time it was deliberate as it allowed me to keep the chiles reasonably distinct during the initial layer of scratch. This resulted in an interesting, though accidental, side-effect of creating diffraction effects which muted a fair amount following varnishing. Other than that, I employed my usual arsenal of scratch tools, leaning heavily on my typical workhorses: needle and pin. * Oddly, it seems the smaller the scratchboard, the longer these things actually take. ** The typical, and seemingly ubiquitous, New Mexico ristra is a tight bundle of red chiles, [...]

Lapsed Vigilance – Sword vs Pen Size:  66 x 78.5 cm (26 x 31 in) Medium:  Mixed Support:  Illustration board Notes:  Ink and acrylic “The pen is mightier than the sword.” “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” These two quotes — apocryphally attributed to Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, respectively — are the basis of this piece. Despite our wanting to be touched by the better angels of our nature, the fact remains that as mighty as words may be, they do not make the sword powerless. Indeed, the first quote implies that the sword is still mighty. History has shown that freedoms are always in danger from both within and without unless you are willing to risk all to protect them. Sometimes that price is dear, indeed. Conversely, dangerous subversion can sometimes be stopped before it foments by the well-timed blade. This, plus the extremely polarized political climate that emerged in the last part of the 20th and into the 21st centuries, served as my inspiration. The foundation of this piece is the United States’ Declaration of Independence. It is realized at approximately the actual size of the original document. Like the original, it is hand engrossed. I spent many, many months learning how to write in a similar hand(s) as the original, using Mitchell and Speedball nibs for the header and gothic text, and Gillott 303 nibs for the primary text. After much experimentation, I found a high-quality liquid sumi ink to be the most suitable. The text is not an exact representation. It has a few mistakes (in addition to the mistakes in the original that I included). Exactness wasn’t the goal, just recognizability. Care was [...]