White Rose on Black Scratchboard

My latest drawing is another ACEO (2.5" x 3.5").
Small, but very detailed, I've drawn it on black scratchboard with an X-acto knife.


The eBay auction runs 'til June 21st at about 9pm.

The scratchboard starts out all black and I carefully scratch away areas to create the detail. In most cases, I used parallel lines to define the contours of the rose petals. The spacing of the lines determines the tone of the area - closer spacing = lighter, farther spacing = darker. In a few places, where the sunlight was brightest on the petals, I scratched away all the black to leave pure white.

The scratchboard I use for ACEOs is a bit different than what I use for my other scratchboard drawings and commission work, it's thinner: a card-stock weight, and there's not much coating on top. Once I've scratched through to the white, I'm not able to scratch any further or make corrections. I can go back in with an ink pen to add some black, but I'm done scratching. I use this for ACEOs because it forces me to work a bit more quickly, since I can't work & rework (scratch & ink, scratch & ink some more, etc.). Because ACEOs are small and the market for them generally doesn't support really high prices, I don't want to spend tons & tons of time getting one done.

I've posted a video on YouTube showing the steps in creating this piece.

This is the reference photo, first in color and then in greyscale (I also adjusted the contrast of the greyscale version to get darker darks and lighter lights)


To find out more about scratchboard & technique check out my demo page.
And there's a new web site featuring scratchboard art & artists: scratchboard-art.com; I have a gallery of work on that site also.