Congratulations to our
Third Place Award of Excellence Winner
Skipp McCunney

Skipp was awarded the third place for his drawing, Patience.

About Skipp:

Skipp McCunney was raised in La Jolla, California.  He holds a BS in Zoology, and BA, MA, and PhD in Philosophy.  Immediately following his initial four years at San Diego State College, in 1972, he was hired into the Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Diego School of Medicine.  

A self-taught artist, Skipp has been drawing and sketching mainly with graphite and charcoal for most of his life.  He is an imaginative artist, who prefers not to draw from photos or a posed model.  Primarily involved in wildlife-oriented art until recently, Skipp’s animal subjects rarely resemble any recognized species, although they are beautifully rendered and anatomically correct.  In recent years Skipp has become interested in portrait work depicting individuals from the mid-to-late 1800’s.  His emphasis on facial expression, emotion, overall softness of rendition, and yet a high degree of attention to detail, are all hallmarks of his work.  Skipp’s future plans include further work in the mediums of watercolor and sculpture.   

Selected Juried Exhibitions and Awards

2019 SDMAAG Au Naturel, Third Place

2019 Del Mar Fair, two Honorable Mention awards

2018 Del Mar Fair, First Place, Donated Award, SDMAAG

2017 Del Mar Fair, Honorable Mention

2014 Del Mar Fair, First Place, and Honorable Mention

 We asked Skipp about his award-winning work titled Patience:

“Patience is a piece I started maybe a year ago, but didn’t complete until November, 2018.  It’s a drawing of a water-bird, most closely resembling a Blue Heron. There’s no particular story behind Patience.  It began as an attempt to sketch a type of bird from my memory as a kid many years ago, in the South-East U.S., called an Aninga, or “Water Turkey, (think fresh-water Cormorant).  The final sketch came out kind of heavy-set for an Aninga, and more like a Blue Heron.  Remember, what you see is purely imaginary. Cumulative time for completion was probably not more than 2 days.”

Materials: 11 oz primed cotton canvas, graphite pencil & powder, charcoal pencil & powder, onyx-black watercolor pigment, distilled water, & Lascaux spray fixative.  I also airbrushed the canvas with distilled water at intervals during the drawing process. I invariably make very extensive use of “subtractive” technique when drawing.  That is: after an image is initially roughed-in, I will darken/shade large areas, and then “lift”, lighten, or otherwise erase, to create contrast, depth, shading, etc., using tools such as various erasers, “dry-cleaning bags”, chamois, old (but clean!) socks, etc.  For every 5 minutes of drawing, I probably spend 30 minutes “surgically” removing media in some way.  The application of powdered media, such as graphite, charcoal, & pastel, is done with a wide variety of brushes, Q-tips, tissues dampened with distilled water, and so forth.”