MATERIALS
I’m going to keep things really simple because that’s the way I am. You can use any tool you want if it creates a scratch on your board, but I generally limit myself to a select few and for this demonstration, I have used only one tool plus a one inch paint brush and some diluted Indian ink. The tool I’ve used is a small fibreglass brush shown above. You can buy these in some art stores, hobby shops or online.
TECHNIQUES
Scratchboard is an extremely versatile and forgiving medium. When people tell you that you need to get each scratch in exactly the right place first time or your board is ruined, don’t believe them. If you are painting in oils and make a mistake, you simply paint over it. The same holds true for scratchboard where you can re-ink over mistakes. The one important thing to remember is that the goal is to scratch the ink off the clay but not scratch through the clay. Use a light touch, something that needs developing, and you will find you have plenty of opportunity to work in layers just as if you were painting.
The fibreglass shaft running through this clutch pen (above) is made up of thousands of tiny fibreglass slivers. Caution – beware, do not get them embedded in your skin, they hurt like hell! However, after a false start, that hasn’t happened to me for years and I don’t use gloves. Just to be safe though, you can put surgical gloves on and save yourself any problems. Vacuum slivers off your desk regularly.
This tool removes the black ink from the surface of the board without scratching through the clay and though it may look like you can’t get much detail with it, I find I can quite easily. For removing the ink from large areas I use it on an angle which wears one side down to a chisel edge and then if I want a little detail, I can flip it over and use the sharper edge. This will wear down quickly and you’ll be back to square one soon but if you use it intelligently, you can move between ‘blocking in’ large areas, and working detail. A serendipity of this is it tends to keep my eyes fresh too.
STEP ONE
I’m using a board manufactured by Ampersand, pre-cut to 11″ x 14” and I’m working from one of my own references from Etosha National Park in Namibia. Zebras come to this waterhole in large numbers and give the artist some great opportunities. I plan to literally fill the board with zebras and have titled this piece “Wall of Stripes”.
Although I believe heavily in sketching to keep up your drawing skills, for finished pieces I use a grid to get my drawing accurate. Placing a grid over the photograph with a computer program and setting it to have at least ten squares on the shortest side, I then mark out the right sized grid on a separate piece of paper the same size as my board. This makes it easy to get your drawing accurate as you are drawing smaller sections within the squares. I won’t go into the techniques of this as you can find this information instantly on the internet. I use transfer paper to get the image onto my board and end up with this.
STEP TWO
Keeping to my KISS mantra (keep it simple, stupid!), I am now going to remove the white stripes from all the zebras without thinking about light direction or shading, simply taking the image back to pure black and white. Do this carefully, making certain you remove the ink from the white stripes and not the black ones – mind you, with zebras who would know?!
Just keep on going until all the stripes are done.
STEP THREE
Am I making it sound easy? Well, it might be involved but it is easy so far. The next stage is also easy as it involves one wash over the whole board with some diluted Indian ink. I have a couple of glasses ready, one with water in it and one with Indian ink diluted only slightly with water. I use a one inch brush and load it with clean water, then dip it into the ink and quickly wash this over the whole board, dipping and washing a few times. Try to keep things even so stripes across the whole board are the same shade of dark.
STEP FOUR
Once it is completely dry, I now go back to my fibreglass brush and start removing the background and the water which I will wash with ink again.
Now the fun, creating that gorgeous African light which shows the form of the zebras so well. Yet again, the fibreglass brush does the job here, using it loosely for the larger stripes and the wedge side described earlier to clean up with highlights on the smaller stripes on the zebras’ faces. Pick out some highlights in the water and the rocks and then to the final stages. I add a complete wash of very diluted ink over the whole board which unifies everything, and at this point I can pick out more highlights as required. Finally, three or four coats of spray varnish over the board makes it look much richer and finishes things off beautifully.
FINAL STEP
You will notice that the whole board has a sepia finish. Different brands of Indian inks react to dilution in different ways, mine going quite sepia. I like this effect and have left it like this deliberately, but if you want to keep the sepia away, experiment by adding a drop of blue and a drop of red to your black ink until you get the ‘colour’ you desire.
Happy scratching!
