Russ McMullin's
Scratchboard Tutorial
Last update: January 2006
THE ORIGIN OF THIS TUTORIAL
This scratchboard tutorial was born out of my desire to give others access to this beautiful medium. Scratchboard and its associated tools are sold at most art stores but how do you find information on how to use it? Where are the instructions? Why don't the store employees know anything about it? What a cryptic medium!
Even in this age of information there is precious little information about scratchboard that is useful, and especially to the beginner. There are very few books and most, if not all, are out of print. There are a few good magazine articles if you are lucky enough to find them in back issues at the local library. For such a lack of information it's incredible that the medium has survived.
I want to keep the tradition alive and save you some of the trouble I have gone through in my quest to explore the medium of scratchboard. I have been working in scratchboard for about 10 years now. I have a degree in illustration and scratchboard is my medium of choice. Much of this information came from a paper I wrote in my last year of school, along with additional information that has come with my experience as a freelance illustrator.
There are certainly plenty of artists out there with a greater mastery of this medium than I have. I would love to learn from them, but unfortunately very few have chosen to write down what they have learned and share it with the rest of the class. I am happy to fill the void until something better comes along. I don't claim to know everything and I don't claim that my methods are the best for everyone. I give you my method and you are free to modify it to suit your own needs. Have fun!
SCRATCHBOARD: HOW DOES IT WORK?
The scratchboard surface starts out solid black. When you scratch it you get a white mark. If you're lucky these white marks should eventually end up creating a picture.
A COMMON MISTAKE
The first mistake people usually make is drawing everything with a white outline, like they would on a chalkboard. They don't get the result they intended.
they do this...
when what they really want is this...
In the second example you can see how black lines were created by scratching on either side of them. It's a lot more work but the result is much better.
IT'S NOT A NEGATIVE
People often say "So, it's like a negative. You have to train your mind to think in reverse". Not exactly. Technically I am working in reverse because I am using white marks instead of black. BUT the result will not be a negative image.
As you can see above in the positive image, the highlights and shadows look pretty normal, as if the picture been drawn with ink. The negative is on the right. I guess there could be uses for it, but it's that positive image I'm after. I don't know how to think in reverse!
GET GOOD SCRATCHBOARD
In theory scratchboard is a pretty simple product. A piece of paper or board is coated with a layer of chalky, white material and then sprayed with a thin layer of black ink. The diagram below shows a cross section of scratchboard that has been magnified and separated to show the layers.
Despite the simplicity, good quality scratchboard is not easy to find. One of the worst places to look is the local art store. The scratchboard that most art stores sell is a nightmare. I'm talking about the thin, flexible stuff that has a shiny, black surface and is about as thick as a postcard. This cheap scratchboard is not worth buying in my opinion, not for students, not for anybody. Any money saved in buying it will be paid for in frustration. The ink layer is too thick and too hard, making it difficult to make crisp, clean scratches. Unless your scratch tool is perfectly sharp it will often skip on the hard surface. Also, the white layer is very thin. This means that, as you're scratching nice and hard to get through the black, the blade may go right through the white layer into the paper underneath. This makes a fuzzy gray spot on your picture that's pretty much impossible to repair. Game over man.
I have strong opinions about student-grade art products. I don't buy them anymore. Over the years I've tried to "save" money by buying inferior paints, brushes, paper, scratchboard, etc. I have payed myself back many times over in frustration and inferior pieces of art.
Some years ago I read an article in Step-by-Step Graphics which showcased the work of Mark Summers (Jan/Feb 1992), well-known scratchboard demi-god (if you don't know who he is just take a look at the posters hanging in a Barnes and Noble store). Among other things he talked about Essdee Scraperboard as being easy to work with. He was right.
I located some and have been using Essdee ever since. If your local art store can't get it you can order it from Daniel Smith or Dick Blick (mail order companies). Both of these companies give excellent service and I wouldn't hesitate to order from either of them. At the time of this writing it's about $17 for a 19" x 24" board. That might seem expensive but I can usually get at least a dozen illustrations out of each board, sometimes more. Working large on scratchboard can get tedious so I work at the smallest size I can get away with.
This scratchboard is well worth the price. The matte black ink is thin enough for easy scratching. The white clay layer is thick enough to allow multiple corrections. I also like the fact that the board is stiffer and thicker than the cheaper scratchboard. It also comes in white but I prefer to have it already inked. It comes in two grades: commercial and professional. Commercial is all I have ever used because I wasn't aware of the professional. I have some samples of the professional grade coming in the mail. I'll report on my experience.
Claybord is another alternative for the scratchboard user. It is stiffer (a pro), thicker (probably a pro), and heavier (a con) than Essdee scratchboard. The board itself is very durable and flat. However, it appears that the black surface is very delicate - more so than the Essdee scratchboard. I have an 8x10 piece that I keep meaning to put to use and it has small scratches on it from having been stuck in the middle of a stack of papers. I tried wiping it with a clean cotton cloth and that made it worse. I have made the mental note that it must be treated with care right from the start. I may borrow my friend's air brush and re-ink it. My next project will be on Claybord because I really want to know what this stuff is like to work with.
SCRATCH TOOLS CAN BE BASIC
Some people swear by the specialized scratchboard tools, but I have never used them. I think they are way too expensive for being just sharp pieces of metal. I like the #16 Xacto blade (below) because it is much cheaper than specialized scratchboard tools and it still works great.
I can vary the angle of the #16 blade to make thinner or fatter lines, as needed. A lot of people use the standard Xacto blade (#11) but it's too pointy for me. I have hundreds of old blades and instead of buying more I have begun using 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper to put the edge back on. It really works well.
In addition to blades I have a sharpened steel point. I don't use it very often but I sometimes need it with a ruler for making nice straight uniform lines. When I do freehand lettering (my name) I will often start it with my steel point for better control.
MISTAKES CAN BE FIXED!!!
I have read too many times that scratchboard is an unforgiving medium and making a single mistake forces you start all over. Bull!. Who started that crazy myth and do they really believe it? Thank goodness it isn't true. Unless you scratch through to the paper layer, mistakes are easy to fix .
Working is scratchboard is just a matter of scratching part of the ink off. If you make a mistake just put that layer of black ink back on. Presto! All fixed. How do you put the ink back on you ask? The section on pens will give you an idea of what tools to use.
Once a correction is made I can gently pat the ink line with my finger to take the shine off and let it blend in. I do this while the ink is still a bit wet. After doing this it is very difficult, if not impossible, to tell that a correction was made.
My hands are not very moist or oily. If yours are, I would use a gloved finger to blot the ink. If you have moist or oily hands you should be using white cotton photo finishers gloves to avoid making a mess of the scrachboard surface.
PENS
An airbrush would be a great tool for fixing mistakes on scratchboard, but pens work just fine for me. There is an art to doing this that just comes with practice.
I started out using technical pens (rapidograph) but when I would correct an area several times the layers of ink got pretty thick and flaky. The ink also doesn't blend well with the color of the scratchboard and the mistakes are more visible.
Pigment pens (below) are much better. Pigment ink lays down very black. It's also very thin so it doesn't build up layers.
I use the Staedtler Marsgraphic Pigment Liner (bottom) and the Sakura Micron Pigma (middle). The Sakura also comes in a brush tip (top). My favorites are the Staedtler pens. They have the best ink in my opinion. They also have a wide calligraphy tip that I'm a big fan of.
I usually buy size .005 or .01. These work for most small repairs and for crosshatching. I like to hatch ink lines (black) across scratched lines (white) to create textures.
Pigment pens tend to clog up with scratch dust so it's good to have at least three. If one clogs I will write on a piece of paper to get the ink flow going, and then cap it for a while until it's ready to go again. The pens with calligraphy or brush tips don't clog and are great for making larger corrections.
Most art stores carry these pens. They are $2 to $3 each. Avoid any kind of pen that would stain the white layer of the scratchboard. This would include anything like a felt tip marker. These inks stain too deeply. It is difficult to scratch back through to white if the white has been stained black by a magic marker.
SANDPAPER
Sandpaper can be a real timesaver. I like to use it to get all the extra black off the borders of my illustrations. This can be time consuming with a blade. I use a small piece of fine drywall sanding screen (below left) and then finish the surface with 320 grit wet/dry sandpaper (below right).
Sandpaper can also help with some corrections. Sometimes when a scratchboard surface is re-inked the grooves left by the previous scratches give a bumpy look to any new scratches. When this happens I use a tiny piece of fine sandpaper to smooth the surface before re-inking. I am careful not to sand too much.
TRANSFERRING THE DRAWING
So, you have this great drawing that you want to do in scratchboard. How do you get the drawing onto that black scratchboard? There are several methods for doing this. Some work better than others depending on your preference.
Transfer Paper
I have heard of people using colored transfer paper, yellow I think, to get a drawing down. I can't imagine why anyone would suffer through this more than once. Retracing is bad enough but the worst part about this is how fragile the colored lines are. I tried this once and started losing the drawing halfway through the illustration. The lines got brushed away with the scratch dust. Never again.
Ballpoint Pen
In the Mark Summers article he explains a better method of transfer. I have used this with good results. Place or tape your drawing on the scratchboard. Trace the lines of the drawing with a fine ball-point pen. This leaves indented lines on the scratchboard that can't get brushed away. When applying pressure be careful the drawing doesn't shift.
Direct Drawing
This might seem obvious but it wasn't to me at first. If you feel really confident you can draw directly on the scratchboard with a pigment pen. This makes nice lines that show up easily. It's good for simple drawings.
Xylene
When I have a complicated drawing I like to avoid retracing if possible. Thankfully I have figured out a solution for transferring complex drawings. It's my preferred method but it does take some practice to get it right.
When xylene comes in contact with the toner (anything black) on a photocopy the toner gets soft and sticky. The sticky toner will transfer to anything that touches it. In this way a photo-copied drawing can be transferred to another piece of paper. When the xylene evaporates the toner hardens back up. This works great for transferring to scratchboard.
For this you need a photo-copiedor laser-printedimage of your drawing. Prints from ink-jet printers will not work. It actually works best if the image is a mirror image of the original; if not, the image will be backwards when you make the transfer. I used to draw on mylar, which is pretty transparent, so I could flip it over and make a mirror image on the copy machine. These days I just scan a drawing into the computer, flip it, and print it out on the laser printer
Get some xylene from a hardware or paint store (about $3 for a 32 oz. can). Position the photocopy of your drawing face-down on the scratchboard. Tape one edge of the photocopy, like a hinge, to the scratchboard--this will keep the paper from shifting. Pull the photocopy back to expose the black scratchboard surface. Put some xylene on a paper towel. If the whole paper towel is wet you're using too much. Wipe it around on the surface of the scratchboard. The surface should be evenly coated and wet, with no evaporation--don't wait too long or it will evaporate. Quickly lay the drawing back down on the scratchboard and rub lightly to make sure the photocopy toner makes contact with the xylene. When you think it's been evenly rubbed down--don't wait too long--then pull the drawing back and the drawing should have transferred. If it doesn't work just use xylene to wipe it off, then try again with a new photocopy.
Once the transfer is made the scratchboard is ready for work. It doesn't take long at all for the toner to harden. In good light the transferred drawing stands out nicely on the black surface of the scratchboard. It is durable and won't brush off.
Xylene is pretty potent smelling so you're going to need good ventilation. I go outside or use my garage if it's cold or windy. If you are going to use xylene, please read the labels and be aware of the dangers. My exposure to the fumes isn't frequent or for long durations, but I am concerned enough that I plan to start using a respirator. I've heard of so many people having problems with solvents of all kinds. This isn't going to stop me from using them, but I want to work smarter than I have in the past. When I'm doing a xylene transfer I keep a clean metal paint can nearby. Right after making the transfer I put the paper towel and the photocopy into the paint can and place the lid on top. If I'm indoors this keeps the fumes under control until I can take it outside to air out. I take the lid off and let all the fumes evaporate. Then I throw the paper towels away or reuse them. I try not to get xylene on my hands. This stuff will dissolve plastics so be very careful.
THE FINISH
Once you have a drawing transferred, it is up to you to decide how to do the finish. It is all a matter of style. Some artists use thick strokes, while others make tiny scratches. Some keep it very linear, while others like to crosshatch. Coming up with unique textures can make your work more interesting. Take a look at the work of other artists to see how they have solved the same problems you are facing.
BOOKS
At the time I wrote this, there wasn't much about scratchboard on the Internet. There still isn't. Also, the Internet isn't the best forum for displaying scratchboard art. If you really want to see great examples of scratchboard work you will need to look at originals, or at something printed. The best book I have found on the subject is Scratchboard for Illustration , by Ruth Lozner (Watson Guptill Publications 1990). I am not sure if it is still in print, but I know it is still obtainable. Along with information about the medium she has compiled an excellent collection of work from the best scratchboard illustrators. I highly recommend getting this book for all the examples of different scratchboard styles. No, I'm not in it.