- Ranger 4
First pass of color on Ranger. This will need more scratching to blend, bring up lighter areas and add variation in tones. I also need to work out the lack of contrast between Ranger and the water next to his face. The water is dark enough that I'll render Ranger the way I would a dark subject against a black background. Here's a video of scratching part of his fur, which is the next step after this stage: rumble.com/vs2w66-ranger-scratchboard-drawing-wip.html - Ronin & Me
- 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. - Detail of Ronin 7
Close up of Ronin's feet/legs & surrounding area from the "Ronin 7" stage - Ranger 6 - Final
The finished drawing 12" x 9" on Ampersand Scratchbord, with watercolor - 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. - Ronin 6
On the downhill side of this 9 x 12 mountain! Obviously, I need to finish scratching his shoulder. I've intentionally over-scratched in the dark areas of his face; I'll go back in and re-ink/fine tune those parts after I get his shoulder scratched, and there are some shadowed parts of his fur that need re-inking. Even though I will color Ronin, I want the scratching to speak for itself - the color will kick it up a notch and separate him from the car - Ronin - Reference Photo
My reference photo of K9 Ronin - taken at an Sacramento Sheriff K9 Association event in 2014. - "Safety" - Framed
"Safety" framed I'm really happy with how the framing turned out. The 5 x 7 scratchboard is glued to an 8 x 10 Ampersand Gessobord that I airbrushed with warm grey mix of inks and then distressed (using various methods that I will probably never be able to replicate). The frame is simple, black wood. - Ronin 8
Now with color! Not quite done, but in the home stretch - needs a little scratching to fine tune and add back some lights, and then probably one more pass with color. This is two layers of color. I prefer to go a little lighter than I want and layer than get the color on too dark and have to scratch more than I'd like. - Ranger 3
More scratching on Ranger has softened his fur and blended some of the values. Some highlights scratched into the water has cleaned up the streaky look from when I initially added watercolor. Now Ranger is ready for color! - Ronin 2
More progress on the car. That "STAY AWAY" lettering took a while to get right, and I'm knocking it back with a tattoo needle. There's still a lot of "sketchy" stuff going on - just to block things in. That's the beauty of scratchboard, I can tidy all that up as I go along. There's plenty of blending work to do where the drawing shifts from positive to negative, and that section under his paws will take some time. And THEN I can start on Ronin! Since he's in front, I want to have all the underlying work done, so I can layer his fur on top - Off Duty? 2
Still working on scratching the dog, but I've started adding a water background. Read the story about the water here: When You Want Different Water - Ranger in Progress
This is a cell phone photo I took during the scratching process. It fits in between Stages 1 & 2 of the scanned images. - Off Duty? 3
Border Collie is all scratched, ready for color! That will help pop him out from the background. He won't have spooky eyes either. After adding color, I'll scratch as needed.