Scratch Boards

My class was given the task of creating a piece using scratch board and a reference photo. My photo and subject was of my cousin, Emily. She's also wearing bunny ears. First, we started out with a small strip of scratch board to do a value scale on (pictured below) by creating patterns to give the illusion of values going light to dark. Then I selected a picture and traced the main shapes onto to the scratch board. We then had to attempt to recreate the values with the scratch board. I mainly used a scraper tool and some ink to cover up the mistakes.

I had little control over the composition of the piece and shapes, as I had to stay faithful to the photograph. And there is no color, so the main thing I had to focus on was value. I'm not very happy with how this piece turned out value wise though. I feel that I spent too long working out how to do the face, which looks alright but the values are quite off. In the background, I tried to create a lighter looking wall by scratching some stuff out of there, but it ended up looking very messy and smushed together. The line work, especially on the face, is very messy as well. I wish that I had made more cohesive lines. There is basically only form on Emily's face and no where else, this in turn, creates emphasis on her face (sort of). This isn't a bad thing as she is the subject and emphasis on faces is something that tends to look nice no matter what. I didn't really know what to do with her hair so I left it, but it turned out to be a nice negative space spot and it contrasts well with her face I think. I didn't change much, but I did try to switch to more simple lines as you can see in her neck and bottom jaw.

The story behind the picture is that Emily was at my house while we we're eating dinner and we went upstairs to watch television. Emily is the stoic and nonchalant type and just always has an aura of... sadness? I'm not sure how to describe it but she seems dead on the inside. I think it transferred a little too well in the scratch board since she seems like she's pouting. Anyways, my brother and I tried to get her to smile since I wanted to take pictures. So we played with her and stuff like that but she didn't seem to notice us. Finally, I was getting frustrated, and put bunny ears on her to try and get her to laugh. It didn't work and I ended up just taking a photo of her looking at the T.V with a blank expression. The project relates to my life because the subject is my cousin. I think I'm most proud of her face as I think I translated to forms well. I struggled a lot with the medium. Drawing white lines is very hard for me and it's even harder when you have to use lines to shade and create forms. I don't really think I overcame this. If I could change something about my work it would be to just focus on the forms and making the lines look good. I think if I just had a simple background, it would make the whole thing look better as well.