- Hanna 4
Now with "spooky eyes". I know it looks weird - the eyes are overscratched at this point, they will be a lovely warm brown when the portrait is finished. I'll stipple the eyes with ink & scratch more to make them darker, while still leaving enough white for the surface to accept color. Her nose is over-scratched also, that will be stippled as well. I left a black outline, so I don't lose the edges of her nose against the fur in that area. Once I finish the scratching in the central area and that tiny bit on the left, then I'll go back in & stipple. - Hanna 7
Scratched to fine tune after adding color. It's lighter, but just wait, I'll add another pass of watercolor, then minimal scratching to fine tune, and the portrait will be finished! I'm in the home stretch....
Check out this video where I added the highlights to her eyes.
And this video that shows scratching previously added color. - Hanna 6
Now with color! This is the first pass of watercolor, next I'll scratch to soften, blend & bring back details.
This video shows adding color to her eyes & nose.
This video shows adding color to her fur. - "Tale of the Tail" - 1st Scan
This is a scan of the CJ drawing, it's much better quality than the previous images that were cell phone photos. The first layer of color is down, I've fiddled with adding & subtracting (by scratching) color to the foreground & background, and I'm starting to scratch the tiger fur. The section of mom's tail to the left of CJ's face is taking shape now that the color has been scratched. - "Tale of the Tail" - Materials and Progress
Tools of the trade. Here I'm still working on the first pass of scratching, after I finish that, I'll add more color. I'll switch to watercolor for that, I have to layer colors when I use the pens, but I can mix the exact color I need with watercolor. - "Got Carrots?" 3 stages, 1 image
This image shows the previous 3 images together. - Scotia 4
Scotia's portrait is "all scratched". She's much too light at this stage, I need to go in and add dark areas with a tech pen, then I can add color! Once that's done, she'll look like a black dog. - Chrome Rising - Reference Photo 1
Here's the original reference photo. You can see the hood was white, but without a dark background, the contrast situation wasn't distracting. - Chrome Rising - Reference Photo 2
To give me a better idea of how to re-work the hood, I took that section of the reference and made it darker. That brought up some details that I could incorporate. - Chrome Rising - Final
"Chrome Rising" - 6" x 6" scratchboard. 1941 Cadillac hood ornament, from my own reference photo.
Scratched with a #16 X-acto & an eyebrow tattoo needle (on the hood of the car), re-inked (stippling) with a technical pen.
I was mostly happy with the previous version of this drawing, but the contrast between the hood & the background in the corner bothered me. It pulled the eye right off the edge. I re-worked the hood to make it darker and now it reads better. I stippled with a technical pen to make the entire hood darker, and then scratched to blend & add highlights.
Part of the reason I didn't anticipate the issue in the corner is that I usually erase the backgrounds in Photoshop to save printer ink and avoid distraction from the subject. This a case where that worked against me, because in the photo, the background was white, so I wasn't seeing that contrast between the hood & the solid black background until I was finished. See the next 2 images - my reference photos... - Off Duty? - Final
Finished! 5" x 7" scratchboard (Ampersand Scratchbord), with watercolor and some India ink for re-inking & drawing long, black hairs. From my own reference photo taken at a dog play day many years ago.