As a scratchboard artist Judy was honored to receive an invitation to be an "Ampersand Artist Ambassador" in 2020. Ampersand™ Art Supply is family-owned company based in Buda TX which engineers a full line of archivally sealed artist panels. They produce the scratchboards Judy favors, as well as a variety of art panels for many different media, plus tools, inks, and special floater frames. The company hand-picked 50 artists from across the US to be their representatives, and Judy is overjoyed to become part of this exclusive team.
This program is a true win-win, designed to help support artists, like Judy, who use Ampersand products and present classes and workshops to introduce and instruct others to use them. As part of this program, Ampersand has created online resources to support teaching artists - with workshop tools, social media assets, and expanded web presence. In return, Ampersand receives increased exposure to their products, valuable feedback from its Artist Ambassadors, input in product development, and more.
To properly represent Ampersand Art, each Ambassador was required to complete a certification process, to become knowledgeable about the company and its products. Ampersand created a series of 15 videos, ranging in topics from company history to manufacturing practices to product details. After viewing these instructional videos, Judy completed multi-choice exams totaling about 150 questions - and scored 100%!
Judy has actually been an unofficial ambassador for Ampersand since she first used their white Claybord™ panels over 20 years ago. "Her Highness" was one of her first watercolors on this smooth scratchboard surface, which she also used with black ink and acrylic paints. In recent years Judy discovered Ampersand's Aquabord™, a white clay panel with a slightly textured surface, more like the watercolor paper she favors. She has learned to love the unique characteristics of watercolor on this rigid panel, which can provide distinct advantages compared with working on paper. The ability to lift and remove pigments allows her to create amazing textures in some of her favorite painting subjects, such as animals, fabrics, hair and beards, flora, and barnwood.
Ampersand Mission Statement:
"To inspire creativity in every artist by making innovative, enduring, and superior quality panels and complementary products and to drive the expansion of artworks created on panel."
Judy also creates unique art on Ampersand Scratchbord™, a scratchboard panel with a smooth black surface over a layer of white clay. She has used it for dramatic artwork, using various knives and abrasives to create a range of values in black and white. In some of her Scratchbord paintings, she uses inks and transparent paints to enhance and add dramatic effects to the black and white surface, as on "Purple Cow." One of the many qualities Judy loves about these scratchboard panels is the ability to seal the painted surface with a clear coating, so she can display them without matting or glass… just fastened into a frame.
Judy shares tools, techniques, tips, struggles and her results on Ampersand scratchboards by presenting classes and writing posts on her blog. By entering my scratchboard paintings in art exhibitions and competitions, she hopes to showcase the exciting and distinctive possibilities of artwork on these surfaces to new audiences. She has won awards for her scratchboard art too. Ampersand Art has been enormously supportive of her, providing product samples and literature for workshops. Judy strongly advocates the use of these museum panels and she favors Ampersand as an American manufacturer and an innovative company.
As an Ampersand Art Ambassador, Judy was invited to create artwork to hang in the gallery at the Ampersand Art headquarters. She and a handful of other Ambassadors created paintings on various Ampersand Art panels, all artists working from the same reference photo of the Ampersand Art CEO's cute dog. These works were then sent to Ampersand and framed in their Floater Frames, to highlight this unique product in a group display. Judy chose to create two pieces for the show, one on Ampersand's Scratchbord™ and a second on Ampersand's Artist Panel, Canvas Texture.
The Ampersand headquarters display, with the honored pup approving the artwork!