realistic scratchboard

For this project we used a material called scratchboard. Scratchboard allows the highlights to be pulled instead of when using a pencil to fill in the shadows. When using scratchboard, small tools are used that are called scratch tools and they have sharp tips and are used to take away the ink that lays on top. One problem that scratchboard causes is that there is no gray because the background is white and top layer is black, so to get a gray looking color you have to take less of the black away creating a ratio of black to white. To start this project we took an image that had to be our own and changed it to black and white, the image had to have a large range of value.

To start this project we began with getting a feel for the tools by creating a value strip. After the value strip was complete we began to work on our larger image, starting with griding both the image and the scratchboard. After this was complete I began to work on the image of the cat starting in the top most left corner and working my way down to the bottom right. After I finished the cat image I began a second one, this one the image was not my own, it was taken by a fellow classmate and used with permission. I used the image of the eye because I there was a lot of grays and so I thought it would be challenging to create.

Some challenges that I ran into with this project was the fact that once the black was taken away there isnt a way a to put it back this caused me to have to slow way down and pay really close attention to the details. Another thing that I ran into was that I had issues with getting the fur on the cat to look like it was going to the right way, I resolved this by making the bottom of the hair look whiter and thicker than the tops of the fur, this made it look more like fur rather than just lines. Overall I really enjoyed this project is made me slow down and work really hard on the details. I liked this project because it used the things I enjoy in art, matching and realism.