Cathy Sheeter is known as one of the premier wildlife and western scratchboard artists of today. Her mastery of the difficult scratchboard medium is evident in the outstanding quality of each of her works. Highly detailed and realistic, her scratchboard art is often mistaken for photographs at a distance. Cathy has been exhibiting her work since 2008 and her rapid accent into highly respected wildlife and western art exhibitions and ever increasing number of awards and publications has made her work increasingly collectable worldwide. Cathy’s work is instantly recognizable due to its life-like eyes, anatomical accuracy, strong compositions, and sense of light which help bring the viewer into the world of her animal artwork creations. Cathy’s work can be found in museum, corporate and private collections in multiple countries across the globe.
Cathy’s primary choice of mediums is the non-traditional scratchboard. Scratchboard is a form of direct engraving where the artist starts with a masonite panel that is coated with white clay and then topped with a thin layer of black ink. A sharp pointed tool is then used to scratch away the black ink and expose the white clay below (leaving a black and white image). The image can then be colored with inks if desired. Scratchboard is regarded by many artists as one of the most difficult mediums to master as it requires excellent drawing skills and attention to fine details. The medium does not allow for many mistakes and the artist must be able to convey many different textures all with just lines or dots. Large and complex pieces can take hundreds of hours to complete. Cathy also enjoys working in graphite pencil, oil paints, color pencil, and pastels from time to time..