The Overall Winning Artists Category consists of the 10 Best Entries received from the 3 media categories of the Painting & Other Category, the Photography & Digital Category and the 3D Media Category.

All winning artists will now be featured on the Light Space & Time website for the month of August 2016 and thereafter, the artworks and links to the artist’s websites will remain online in the Light Space & Time Archives.

Congratulations to our artists who made our 6^th Annual “Nature” Art Exhibition so successful this month. At any time, we invite our winners and other interested visitors to link their websites to the Gallery’s archive page for further ongoing promotion.

The Light Space & Time Online Art Gallery will have digital “Nature” Award Certificates, Event Postcard and Press Releases sent to you within the next week or so. Thank you for being part of the gallery. To return to the Nature Home Page here.

1st Place - John Duke - "Preening"

As a 19 year veteran of a local police department, John Duke took up painting as a way to relieve the everyday stresses of the job. His love of animals has dominated his subject matter. He enjoys the challenge of meticulously rendering the various textures of an animal’s fur or feathers or scales. A major objective of his work is to bring out the intrinsic beauty of a creature not generally thought of as being "pretty" or "cute", such as a turtle or lizard.

Since 2007, John has participated in dozens of juried and non-juried exhibitions in the Washington Metropolitan area, where he has won 15 best of show awards. In the past 5 years, he has accepted commissions for clients all over the United States. 

While most of his time is taken up as a law enforcement officer, John looks forward to the day he can focus all his energies on art.  jocadu1@yahoo.com

2nd Place - Lou Ann Goodrich - "Tiger Play"

A lifelong resident of the Pacific Northwest, Lou Ann Goodrich currently resides in Oregon where she maintains forested acreage preserved for wildlife.

An environmentalist, she is an active proponent of healthy ecosystems and habitat conducive to maintaining diversity and sustainability for wildlife and the natural world. Animals have always been a large part of her life and after retiring from a career in medicine she pursued photography to record and express the beauty of the natural world.

Now a passionate photographer of wildlife and the natural world, she particularly strives to portray species-specific behavior in her images. Recently she has diversified and added digital photo artistry to her skills which allows an additional creativity and artistic presentation of her images.  www.louanngoodrich-photoartist

3rd Place - Marsha Drew - "Tree of Love Copper Wire Wall Sculpture"

Throughout my life, I've been an explorer of new places and a seeker of adventure. My wanderlust has taken me to many corners of the planet and once I am there into the hidden places many people don't see. Three years ago I sold most of my worldly goods and I now travel full-time.

Being an avid rock hound, my sculptures are created from the inspirations I find in nature during my travels. Collecting pieces from across the globe and then working them into my designs captures the energy of the place it was found and turns cold and sharp metal into a soft but sturdy piece of art begging to be touched. Each is reminiscent of where it was discovered.

As a certified Arborist, trees have always been an important part of my life. Now, I twist my love of nature, my gypsy lifestyle and a lifelong passion for sculpture into one of a kind creations.  www.twistedgypsyart.com

4th Place - Ann Ranlett - "Call of the Prairie"

Ann Ranlett, SSA is a Signature member of the International Society of Scratchboard Artists (ISSA), and an Associate member of the Society of Animal Artists (SAA). Her art has won awards at national and international levels. Her work has received "Awards of Excellence" at three of the five ISSA Exhibitions to date. "Sleeping Patterns", a scratchboard drawing of two tigers, has been accepted in the SAA's 2016 "Art and the Animal" Exhibition which opens in September 2016.

Ann is a graduate of CSU, Sacramento (California), with a bachelor's degree in biology. Her scientific training, attention to detail, and love of nature are a perfect fit for scratchboard. She enjoys sharing her process and frequently gives demonstrations for local art organizations and at annual open studios tours. In 2015 & 2016, she was one of the featured artists at the California State Fair where she demonstrated scratchboard in the Fine Art Exhibit hall for a few days during the run of the Fair. Ann also teaches scratchboard workshops and was one of the speakers at the 2012 – 2014 ISSA workshops.

Ann’s love of animals is a large part of her life. She supports a number of local animal rescue organizations and they are often a source of reference photos. She donates a portion of the sales of her art to these groups. She and her husband (also a biologist), live in rural Newcastle, California, where they’ve landscaped their property with an emphasis on native plants and wildlife habitat.

Ann says, "My lifelong interests in nature and drawing and my biological/scientific background have given me an attention to detail that is perfect for, realistically rendered pieces on scratchboard. I'm fascinated by the textures and patterns found in nature. I also have experience as a graphic designer, so I look for interesting compositions and cropping to use in my drawings. While many people consider the scratchboard process tedious, I truly enjoy the "Zen" nature of it and the challenge of capturing my subject with strokes of a knife."   www.ScratchboardArtByAnn.com

5th Place - Kathie Miller - "Charging Bull Elephant"

Kathie has been a wildlife artist all her life and loves to explore new techniques and mediums.

She has worked in many different mediums from oils to pastels, colored pencils to carving life-size songbirds. But it’s the computer that gives her the most enjoyment.

Kathie’s work brings the viewer closer to the world of wildlife, allowing the audience to glimpse a moment in the subject’s life. With attention to the smallest detail, the subjects seem to move on the canvas.

Kathie began working with a computer in 1998. It was then she started to see the potential of the computer for art. She explains painting on the computer is exactly like painting on canvas just without the mess and odors.

Her favorite subject has always been the big cats. When she became a falconer she started painting birds of prey and found the change from fur to feathers to more challenging than she thought. Now she enjoys painting birds, but will always return to her first love of the big cats.

Kathie paints nature to move and inspire people to seek a deeper understanding of the world around us.  http://kathiemiller.com

6th Place - William Ritchie - "Australasian Harrier"

William Ritchie is an Australian wildlife artist with a Ph.D. in Biology who combines his deep understanding of the natural world with a lifelong passion for wildlife and its conservation to create detailed artwork that captures the unique character of his subjects.  

He is comfortable working in any medium but specializes in oil, watercolor, and gouache. He creates sculptures from recycled materials, including scrap metal and recycled timber. His artwork has received numerous awards and commendations.

William currently lives and works as a wildlife artist and art educator in the Macedon Ranges of Victoria.  www.williamritchie.com.au

7th Place - Nicole Wilde - "The Ethereal Egret"

Nicole Wilde is a passionate photographer and digital artist living in California. Her lifelong love of animals and nature shines through all of her work.

Nicole strives to create not simply pretty portraits but to capture the emotional life of animals. Her composited works create magical worlds where a little girl can read a bedtime story to a sleepy wolf, a little boy can soar with the eagles, and we can all feel the sacred interconnection of all living beings.  www.nicolewildephotography.com

8th Place – Patsy Lindamood - "We Three Zed"

A late starter as an artist, Patsy Lindamood has sought out nationally and internationally recognized pastelists and wildlife artists with whom to do workshops as a means to rapidly enhance her mastery of painting techniques and to enrich her understanding of what constitutes compelling art. While she has taken away incredible insight and exciting approaches to viewing the world of nature and of art from her experiences with each of one of her “artist heroes,” Patsy has emerged with a style uniquely her own, marked by strong, colorful, yet infinitely detailed compositions in a boldly representational style.

Patsy’s subject matter derives largely from the animal world, although she has also executed a number of figurative and portrait pieces, including award-winning works. Patsy’s artistic reputation, however, is well-established as a wildlife artist. Her wildlife work is based on her personal research and observation of creatures in their environments, in the wild whenever possible. Long hikes through wildlife refuges and extensive camping trips to state and national parks have provided great adventure and abundant inspiration. For Patsy, the pursuit of the reference material for her art continues to provide as much joy and excitement as the act of painting her wildlife subjects. Magic occurs when an especially momentous field experience results in a compelling wildlife work of art.

Patsy is drawn to strong colors, strong textural elements, and strong negative shapes, and she generally paints her wildlife in simplified compositions that allow her to focus on these elements. In the field, doing her reference photography, Patsy seeks out these compositional elements.

Patsy resides and paints on her property in Huntsville, Texas, her base of operations since early 2012. She regularly shows her work on the campus of Sam Houston State University, in the Lowman Student

Center Gallery and her work has been featured in several two-woman shows in Texas in 2015. Over the last decade, her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in numerous juried exhibitions, including wildlife exhibitions, pastel exhibitions, and other open exhibitions. Patsy has received numerous regional, national and international awards for her art, and is a signature member of more than half a dozen professional art associations. She is a signature member of the Society of Animal Artists, The International Guild of Realism, the Pastel Society of America, and has been conferred the designation of Master Pastelist by the International Society of Pastel Associations. Her images have been included in multiple publications, can be viewed at and obtained via her website and are marketed through a specialty boutique in Cocoa Village, FL and the Art d’Affaire Gallery in Galveston, TX.  www.lindamoodfineart.com

9th Place - Rebecca Cook - "Percheron"

Rebecca Cook is a mostly self-taught artist and photographer, finding inspiration in what others often miss. Diagnosed with a severe chronic illness several years ago which greatly limited her options in life, she has used creating art to open exciting new vistas for self-expression. As she progresses in her artistic journey, she finds herself exploring the extreme opposites of two types of artistic expression: the ancient art of encaustic wax medium and photo artistry birthed by new technology.

The tactile nature of encaustic appeals to her senses, though it is a difficult media to master. This art form predates the birth of Christ, and beautiful examples can still be found in Egyptian and Greek museums. Encaustic work is teaching her patience and perseverance and the power of following her own artistic voice rather than comparing herself to other encaustic artists.

On the other hand, modern photographic technology allows her the delight of mastering photo artistry. She alters and enhances images, coaxing forth the inner voice of the subject. Her desire is to show the Creator’s hand in the details of creation. Proverbs 25:2 states “It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.” (ESV) One of her favorite quotes is “Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.” (Jonathan Swift)

Rebecca has had several successful local exhibits of her artwork and is a member of the Art Cellar Gallery in nearby Greenville SC. She has also had several pieces juried into local art exhibits.  http://1-rebecca-cook.pixels.com

10th Place - Tony Ramirez – “Regal”

Tony Ramirez is a painter, born in San Antonio, Texas. He began drawing at the age of eight simply out of boredom, but over time art became an escape from his rough childhood. Starting by drawing simple cartoons, he worked his way up to more refined drawings. In middle and high school he was encouraged to start painting and it soon became his one passion.

He stuck to his art through the years refining his craft and eventually attended Oklahoma Christian University to study Art Education. Unfortunately Tony had to leave school after 2 years, but he kept it up and learned new techniques on his own. Tony is now in the US Air Force and continues to work on and share his craft.

Tony is now enrolling in his Master of Art and Design degree through the University of Northern Colorado with a goal to finish what he started and become an art teacher after he retires from military service.  tramirezart@gmail.com