TIGER TAIL BEACH 1 | Niki Butcher

Marco Island © 1986

Photographic Story Many artists have a dream or vision of an image they want to capture. I had a dream one night that I was sitting under an umbrella on a tiny island of sand, reading a book and free from all the stresses of the world. In my mind, I called it “Escape,” and for years, every time we went to a beach or out in our boat, I searched for it. I had almost given up on finding it when we were boating off Marco Island, and I saw a woman sitting under an umbrella on a sandspit surrounded by beautiful turquoise water! It was the very image I had envisioned. I jumped out of the boat (thankfully, the water was shallow) and began taking photographs. I felt a little guilty about disturbing her peace, but she was so engrossed in her book that she didn’t even notice me! I took several pictures and quickly returned to the boat, satisfied that I had finally captured the image I had so long dreamed of taking. The Art of Hand Painting Black and White Photographs Niki prints her images on fiber-base black and white mat surface paper in the darkroom, then using Q-tips and cotton balls, she applies a thin coat of oil paint over the surface allowing the image to gently be seen through the oil paint. Archival Print Making Niki’s open edition gicleé artwork is printed on Sunset Bright Velvet Rag matte finish paper using eight archival inks. A state-of-the-art Epson Stylus Pro printer creates deep, rich dark values that hold subtle detail in the shadows as well as bright vivid colors that are truly tropical.