30 Dec Artist Spotlights: Cathy Sheeter

Cathy Sheeter uses scratchboard to create award-winning portraits of wildlife, barnyard animals, birds, and pets. A medium many kids tried in grade school art classes and then left behind, Sheeter’s scratchboard pieces are so startlingly lifelike that some viewers insist they’re photographs. Even more compelling are the distinctive personalities she draws out of her subjects, like the chickens featured in We Don’t Give a Cluck.

Photo: A.K. Acerra

“I do enjoy whimsical titles, especially if it’s funny artwork,” she says. The painting is a compilation of several dozen original reference images. “I narrowed it down from probably 40 different chickens to those five. They all have some sort of attitude, but they aren’t mean girls.” When she first displayed that painting, she says she would ask men walking by, “Which chick do you dig?”

Sheeter’s playful attitude, combined with her undeniable talent, has vaulted her to the highest levels of an art form that, though far from conventional, has been gaining traction among serious collectors. In her first-ever juried show, in 2008, she was selected as a signature member of the Society of Animal Artists. As a founding member of the International Society of Scratchboard Artists in 2011, she has served multiple times as president of the growing organization. She is recognized as a master member in acknowledgement of the skill, artistic vision, and scientific accuracy of her work.

Scratchboard and Ink | Scratchboard | 18 x 36 inches

That uncanny verisimilitude has its roots in Sheeter’s upbringing in a small ranching and agricultural town in eastern Oregon, where she raised and showed animals. Although she demonstrated artistic talent throughout her school years, even earning a ribbon in ninth grade for her scratchboard depiction of a mother loon with two babies, she studied animal science with an emphasis on genetics in college. All the while, she sketched and occasionally worked on scratchboard.

Take All Comers | Scratchboard | 18 x 24 inches

In a process akin to engraving, Sheeter painstakingly scratches through the board’s inky black surface to reveal the chalk-white layer beneath and, in the process, creates a negative image that she often colors with translucent inks, which are especially well-suited to her subjects. “Fur and feathers are lines, and scratchboard paintings are lines,” she says. “I love the drama of watching my subjects come to life in white on black. Once I picked up my first professional-grade scratchboards — the durable Masonite board rather than paper-based boards — I never went back to any other medium.”

Watch Over My Shoulder | Scratchboard and Ink | 11 x 14 inches

Cathy Sheeter is demonstrating and selling her scratchboard art through March 29 at Scottsdale, Arizona’s Celebration of Fine Art. Her paintings can also be seen in the collections of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson, Arizona; the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin; and the Hiram Blauvelt Art Museum in Oradell, New Jersey.

Based in Marin County, California, Norman Kolpas is the author of more than 40 books and hundreds of articles. He also teaches nonfiction writing in The Writers’ Program at UCLA Extension.