Petunia – Mini Scratchboard Drawing

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Interview in ISSA Newsletter

This interview appears in the Summer 2022 issue of the International Society of Scratchboard Artists‘ Newsletter. Click the image for a readable JPG.



Our Newsletters are a member-only perk. To read the rest of this issue, and back-issues, join the Society at the Associate (supporter) level of only $25 per year.

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Burnett Way Mini Gallery Show

Thanks to a referral by Barbara Steinberg of the California Watchable Wildlife Program, I contacted artist Sue Torngren to ask about putting my art in the mini gallery she curates. I love the concept, and this gallery is a good … Continue reading

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SubKit Interview

I greatly appreciate opportunities to share my art & my story. Not only is it a chance to market what I do, but it makes me think about what I do in the context of the questions asked.
The team atA SubKit recently contacted me for a short interview about my art business.

Read the full interview here

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Stickers!

I recently bought a Cricut (die-cutting machine) for the purpose of creating stickers of my art. I’ve been ordering stickers & other “swag” (buttons, key chains, pins etc.) from StickerMule, and have been happy with those, but I wanted the option to make my own stickers whenever the mood strikes. The Cricut has worked really well, and I’ve found the materials that are the right fit for my art. Printable vinyl is a great product, made by various companies: I run that through my Epson Artisan 1400 printer, add a clear matte laminate on top to protect the art, then run that through the Cricut to make either individual stickers or sheets. I’ve also found a holographic vinyl that works well with some of my older drawings, created back when I was selling art cards on eBay. Visit the “Stickers & Stuff” section of my shop to see all these fun goodies!

Here’s a short video of the Cricut in action, cutting out some Tough Chick stickers.

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Mark Your Calendars – May Open Studios Tour

I’m participating in the North Auburn Artists’ Open Studios Tour this year. May 7th & 8th, 10 – 5 each day.

I’ll be at Diane Tharp‘s place. I showed with Diane for the North Auburn “Fall Into Art” event in September 2021, and had a great time. I expect more visitors for the May event, as it’s been around over 20 years.

More details, and a map of the locations & artists to follow…

I added a stripe of my owl drawing to the header image for the tour. It made me laugh: one of these things is not like the others. That drawing doesn’t even have much black in it, but it certainly shows how different scratchboard is from other art forms!

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Finalist in Richeson75 Competition

This gallery contains 2 photos.

I learned a few weeks ago that “Heart of San Pedro”, my scratchboard drawing of a Western Screech Owl, was selected as a finalist in the 2021 “Animals, Birds & Wildlife” Competition. See all the entries here. Some of the … Continue reading

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Scratchboard Talk & Demo at RFA



On 11/18/2021 I gave a talk and demo at Rocklin Fine Arts‘ monthly meeting. I’m always grateful for an opportunity to share scratchboard! The talk was recorded. It’s a little disjointed because I was trying to speak to both in-person and Zoom audiences, and make sure the items I shared were visible for the overhead camera. All in all I think it went well and most importantly, I didn’t have any “Ted Baxter moments”.

My talks/demos are generally quite free-form – the questions I’m asked direct the discussion. Watching scratching is like watching paint dry, it’s not a quick process, so I bring plenty of in-progress boards and visual aides to help describe the process.

Watch the video

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Now at High-Hand Gallery

This gallery contains 2 photos.

I was recently invited to join High-Hand Gallery in the historic packing shed complex in Loomis, CA. My work has been there about a month. One of the pieces there is Serengeti Steampunk (Ink on Claybord, 36″ x 20″) & … Continue reading

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What Was I Thinking?

… also … What Have I Gotten Myself Into?
Ages ago, I created a blog on the Blogger platform and posted pretty regularly for a few years. I later joined Facebook and put more of my time into posting updates, works in progress, and random thoughts on my business page there. More recently, I decided to pull back from Facebook and put that type of content on my web site. You can read about that in my “Pivoting” post.

Over the past couple months, I’ve copied content from the Blogger posts and re-created them here, with the original dates, to preserve the timeline. I’ve focused on more recent posts or those that were pertinent to my current work and thought process.

Today, I moved another post, which also involves updating links from pages of this site to link to the new post here – not difficult, but I have to be methodical about it. THEN I made the mistake of scrolling back to see how many blog posts I had made on Blogger. This is where the “What Was I Thinking?” part kicks in. It was unsettling because that’s when I discovered posts went back to 2006. I ran away from Blogger to preserve my sanity and came here to post.

Now I’m contemplating what to do next: there’s no point in transferring some posts. They relate to events that are so far past, it doesn’t matter. But I do have to decide which posts are worth moving, from an “Ann’s growth chart” standpoint, and I think that is worth doing. For now, I’m going to take a break, post some art (because an art blog NEEDS art in the posts!), and go work on another drawing.


This is a 2″ x 2″ scratchboard drawing of a kitten. Click here to watch the 30-second reel I created on Instagram. You’ll see the all-scratched version just prior to adding color (watercolor), the final version (as seen above), and how I framed it.|

My current commission is this 6″ x 10″ portrait of Cassie & Bella. At this point, it’s ready for more scratching, which I’ve been doing, but I won’t scan that stage until I finish the entire pass of scratching.




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