The most asked question I receive at art fairs is, how are the scratchboard portraits made? Well, I buy the boards premade at art shops; it is called Ampersand Scratchbord. It is masonite board coated with white clay and black India ink, you use metal tools to scratch away the surface ink to show the white clay underneath.
For myself, I have a photo of the animal up on my computer in front of me as a reference, then I picture the image on the board using a few measurements and my sense of proportion. I look at the photo to see what would be a good place to start, a key area where I could transition well to the other parts of the animal and anchors the piece. Then using the ends of the board as a guideline, I start lightly scratching the surface with a metal quill to form the part of the face I am focusing on. I slowly work my way out from that spot, transitioning to areas where scratching is needed and leaving negative space to work around. For each type of line or texture, I often hold the quill a slightly different way or scratch it along the surface at a different angle. Fur is often quicker to create than skin or scales, as you can establish a rhythm with hair, long lines flowing along a similar route. But with skin or scales, you are chipping away tiny sections, making sure to allocate for gaps in between or wrinkles.
For example, when I was creating the iguana (above), I knew that each section of scales formed a pattern, so I had to follow that. But I also had to build wrinkles and shadow, as well as any changes in colouring, so each scale had to leave the appropriate amount of black around it. Finally, the size of scales varied depending on where they were on the body. More surrounding black equals more shadow and creates depth. Larger scales closer together creates the illusion that it is closer to the eye.
This balance is one of the reasons pure black and white animals, such as pandas or zebra, are tricky. It becomes tricky to create depth, for instance, if the animal has white sections that are supposed to be further away to the viewer’s eye than the black parts, as any increase of white brings that section closer.
The three main ideas to keep in mind while building out the image is this:
- Keep an awareness of any black/negative space you need, these sections have to be left untouched. So it is often useful to leave slightly more room than required that you can fill in later, as you can’t expand the space.
- Keep an eye on your proportions, the width of the nose, how far the ear is from the edge of the shot, the height of the eye, etc. Since it is nearly impossible to correct mistakes, getting the proportions right is crucial when creating each section of the face or animal.
- Keep the scratches light to begin with, you can always add highlights later on, but you cannot remove scratches. You are conveying depth, texture, and colour all at once with your markings, so intensity, closeness, and type of line are all significant.
Feel free to reach out if you have questions or comments!
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