Category: Scratchboard
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Moon Turtle Mandalas
The circular turtle shell is a motif that I have used in several drawings, the most detailed of which is the scratchboard Tsunami Turtle. The first time I used it, I painted the Dark Moon Tortoise Mandala in forest fire charcoal, charred bone, and silver metallic powders. It’s been holding a collection of white chalcedony “moon pebbles”, though now I’m drilling…
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Healing Impy
Impy, our seven year old “Black Cat #1” , got very sick a couple of weeks ago. He has already used up several of his nine lives – he was a rescued stray who had lived outside for several months before we trapped him in 2003. He arrived with an abscessed bite wound on his shoulder that needed surgery, and…
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Datura Diversity
Three species of Datura enliven summer roadsides in the Southwest. All are low, shrubby annuals that grow only on recently disturbed ground. They have tubular white and purple flowers, prickly seedpods, and leaves that are more or less triangular in shape. Where I live, the three species are separated by preferred elevation, though there is some overlap. D.…
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Stones Oracle: Eye Agate
It’s good to be working on the Moon Oracle again. Finished the first of the eight Stones drawings. These will depict various round white quartz and chalcedony pebbles in the geological environment where they are found (which is sometimes, though not necessarily, the environment where they form.) This one is for the First Quarter Moon…
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Stick Oracle – finished
I finished the last of the Stick drawings. This one represents the Third Quarter Moon. For some reason, this is the most stylized and least realistic of the series, though that wasn’t intentional. Minor changes will be made in a couple of the drawings before printing, but for now you can see how they all…
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Stick Oracle: Madrone Gate
For the Waxing Gibbous Moon, the Stick Oracle shows a gate built of two heavy Arizona madrone branches placed in a pile of stones on a small island. The young bark of madrones is smooth and dark red, so it is shown in black here. Older bark is nearly white and is broken up into small square blocks. …
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Stick Oracle: First Quarter Moon
Just in time for the First Quarter Moon – the corresponding card in my Stick Oracle, showing two forked staves marking the confluence of two creeks. Although carefully sketched before inking, these Stick cards (six so far, with two to go) have had a lot of reworking as each develops on the way to the…
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Silver Scratchboard Wand
I bought myself a Winter Solstice present: silver scratchboard by ScratchArt. It comes in packages of 10 8″x10″ sheets for about $8.00. Basically it’s a sheet of smooth aluminum foil laminated to cardstock and coated with a thin layer of black ink. The ink layer is thinner than the Ampersand Scratchboard (Claybord Black) that I…
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Solstice Cards
My next oracle project is a set of 16 Sticks and Stones cards. The Sticks will depict twigs, wands, and staves along the Oldest River, and represent moon phases as well as the eight “fire festivals” of the solar year. Four of these drawings are completed. The Stones will show various types of naturally round white moon-like chalcedony…
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