Sandra Willard Art

Self-taught artist Sandra Willard (Born 1970) was born in Ontario, Canada. She chooses to work with scratchboard because of its multifaceted ability to create images. She can let loose with bold scratches or she can capture fine details with a delicate touch and bring out its almost 3D quality. Another property of scratchboard that is very important to her is its archival quality. Framed Sandra Willard art look very attractive. She says that her art is a success to her if it slows a viewer down and they get lost in the details. After spending so many hours creating a piece she wants to know that her work will be preserved for a long time to come. She immigrated to the US from Canada in 2004 to marry her Thomas. In the recent past, Sandra has had several exhibitions in galleries throughout Illinois - both solo and in group. Her art has been published in the American Art Collector magazine and in the Strokes of Genius by North Light Books in their 4th edition. When she creates an artwork in scratchboard she finishes it entirely in black and white. It is at this point that she makes the sometimes very difficult decision of whether to add color or not. When she chooses to add color, it means that there will be considerably more work before she completes the work. The color that she uses is transparent ink and she uses a small watercolor brush to apply it in glazes over the exposed white kaolin clay. The highlights get lost in the glazing process, so she has to scratch the colored ink to bring it out. She may repeat these steps many times to achieve the saturation of color that she desires in order to consider the artwork as complete.