Last year over the weekend of 17-18 February, I attended "The Art of Scratchboard" workshop ran by Master artist, Rikki Fisher, at NatureArt Lab.
The first day we spent learning the techniques and familiarising ourselves with the materials, as well as being introduced to different styles of scratchboard art used by various artists around the world.
The second day, I spent working on the Koala (pictured above) and trying not to be too heavy handed!
I have continued practising in the medium and love how scratchboard art really highlights the contrasting light and detailed textures of the animals and flora. I have since completed the fantail, Vesper the cat and Indy the dalmatian, pictured above, as well as a portrait of my friend, Rose, and her brother. I have to say that people are a lot more challenging to capture on scratchboard than animals! It is an unforgiving medium if you make a mistake or scratch away too much.
If you Google Rikki's art works, you'll see I still have a fair way to go to reach her Master-status abilities, her artworks sell for thousands of dollars and look like photographs with the level of detail she manages to capture in each. Her speciality is African animals. Her soft touch means she takes an extremely long time labouring to complete each work.
For me, I need to continue to work on softening my heavy-handed scratching and also practice patience and mindfulness whilst completing my scratchboard artworks. It is a more controlled style compared to my usual sketching technique (which you can see under the 'Sketch' and 'Draw' tabs on this website) – it certainly presents a challenge to this artist who prefers to slap on the oil paints in big bold brushstrokes!