Scratchboard

I grew inspired to scratch my dog, Beau because I found a really interesting photo of my dog and I thought it was a cool viewpoint of Beau. And since he's an animal, it was fun to make him on scratchboard because once you're done, you can see every line of hair and fur on the artwork, making it look somewhat more realistic. I learned on the way while creating this art that it was pretty easy to bring highlight to the scratchboard, so I had to make sure to only add the white where the white was needed, but it was hard if I made a mistake since you can't fix anything.

The materials I used to create my scratchboard of Beau consisted of an 8.5" by 11" scratchboard where I scratched away the black surface to uncover the white layer beneath. I also used a scratch knife to create the different values of grey, and white, scratching away more layers to discover highlighted regions underneath.

The process of creating the scratchboard of Beau was pretty simple, it didn't take a lot of steps, but it did take a lot of time to copy down the exact picture of Beau. My first step in this process was to decide what to create, whether an animal or anything that can be made on scratchboard. I chose to scratch away Beau because I liked the picture of him, it almost looked like a .5, and I thought it would be cool to make something from a different perspective than usual. I also wanted to draw Beau because he's an animal and since he is made up of hair and fur it is easier to make him on scratchboard. After I chose to scratch Beau, I started with the ear and went to the right, finishing the artwork with the nose where I added detail, stippling on many little dots. Along with finishing the nose, I also added the whiskers around the nose and the eyes as well.