- "Safety" - Final
"Safety" 7" x 5" Claybord (white scratchboard) with India ink, ink wash, watercolor (eyes), Pitt Art Marker (shades of warm grey) and a 7B pencil. I used the pencil near the end to add a layer of light shadow to the fabric on the right side. Scratched with a #16 X-Acto. This one took a LOT longer than I had planned, but I'm really happy with how she turned out. "Safety" received a Silver award (2nd place) in the Master's division of the 2017 International Society of Scratchboard Artists' Annual Exhibition. It also sold from the Exhibition. - "Safety" 1
Here's the first, sloppy stage of "Safety", 7" x 5" The reference photo has a lot of light values in it, so I used Claybord (white scratchboard) for the drawing - that way, I didn't have to remove a lot of black. using artistic license I chose to make the upper and lower left sections dark instead of showing the dog's body. The shape wrapping around her head is an arm in a fleece sweatshirt. At this stage, I blocked in the values by painting with full strength India ink & ink washes. It looks really rough here, but all this became detailed with scratching as I worked through the process. I used a Rapidograph (technical pen) filled with India ink to draw the eyes and to scribble the stripes of her brindle pattern. At this point I had just started "texturizing" the solid black areas by scratching. Here's an Instagram video showing stippling on a portion of the background: www.instagram.com/p/BH4aLolBaqP