About Us

Barry & Ruth Guimbellot

Barry and his wife Ruth are Contributing Editors for Dive Training and Dive Center Business magazines, where they are responsible for two monthly columns as well as being Video Producers for the magazine. In addition to these assignments and more, they have produced over 80 magazine covers.
Barry is the found of and was President of the Dallas Underwater Photographic Society from 1992 to 2021.
Barry and Ruth are also Black Belts in American Tae Kwon Do. Barry is a Tenth Degree Black Belt and has been teaching karate since 1973. They owned and operated from 1978-2010 the oldest and one of the most successful martial arts school in Texas; the Texas Karate Institute in Richardson, Texas.

History

As an amateur photographer, Barry was very active in photo contests, placing in most of the large contests in the U.S., with a total of 9 first place wins. Most wins were in the "Creative" division, which required an advanced knowledge of Photoshop. Perhaps his largest win was in a Ritz Photo contest, when he won a grand prize against 22,000 entrants.

Artwork

Now, Barry is very active in a type of art, called Scratch Art.

Scratchboard is a 2-dimensional subtractive art form. The support typically consists of a white kaolin clay coated hardboard covered with black India ink. Sharp tools are used to remove, or “scratch”, through the black ink, revealing the white clay underneath. The majority of the values within the artwork are achieved by varying the amount of surface layer that has been removed.
Artworks may be left black & white, or the exposed clay areas can be colored. A variety of transparent mediums may be used for color, including watercolor, ink, and fluid acrylics. In this case, tonal variation may also be obtained with varying dilutions. These clay coated boards can also be covered initially with other colored media, and then scratched.
Many artists use sharp tools such as scalpel blades to scratch into the clay, creating work with exceptional detail and realism, but any abrasive implement may be used to create a variety of effects. This unique process has attracted artists for its control in rendering intricate subject matter, while remaining highly versatile to those exploring folk art, abstract work and many other artistic styles.
Scratchboard has roots going back to the 1800’s when black and while illustrations were created for newspapers and books. Creation of archival, museum grade materials has allowed it to continually evolve to the present day where it is now prominent in design work and fine art.

"Bigblue Dive Lights" and "Leak Sentinel Underwater Vacuum Alerts" Dealer

Barry is also a dealer for Bigblue Dive Lights and Leak Sentinel.
For a great deal on any Bigblue Dive Lights products or Leak Sentinel Vacuum Alerts, please contact us with your requirements or visit our products page.

"Key Words Workflow Dealer"

Be sure to check out our Products page about adding Marine and Mammal Keywords automatically to your images in Adobe Lightroom Classic.