by Rikki Fisher (Australia)
In 2011, I went on a three month backpacking holiday to East Africa. My journey took me to Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda. Whilst in Africa I went on some safaris where I had the pleasure of seeing and photographing an abundance of wild animals. From drawing and painting mainly Australian birds, the subject of my artwork now shifted to a whole other world (or continent) of wildlife. My inspiration came from a long fascination from afar.
At around the same time I came across an art magazine that showcased (for me) a new technique called scratchboard. The artist whose work I was admiring was Patrick Hedges from SA, a founding member of the International Society of Scratchboard Artists (ISSA) based in USA. I got online and found a whole new world of scratchboard artwork.Scratchboard is a board with a thin clay coating covered with black ink. A scratch tool is used to scratch through the layer of black ink revealing the white clay underneath. You can buy board that is pre inked, called scratchboard or un- inked called clayboard.
Scratchboard originated in the 19 th century in Britain and France. It became a popular medium for reproduction in single colour book and newspaper printing. In recent years there has been a revival in this technique but with a more sophisticated result.
What struck me about scratchboard was the level of detail and contrasts you could achieve with just black and white. It was so simple, yet amazingly striking. At the time I discovered this medium, I had been using charcoal to achieve dramatic contrasts but I couldn’t get the detail I wanted. Scratchboard seemed to be the answer.Scratchboard suits artists who are very patient and with a penchant for detail. The artwork is made up of copious tiny strokes that take hours of patient work, building up each layer until you have created a 3 dimensional effect. Often scratchboard artists work on small pieces (5”x7”) because of the length of time it takes to produce a finished piece. I prefer larger sizes and it is not uncommon for me to take 1 to 3 months to finish one piece.
My preferred tool is a fiberglass brush, which is broader than the fine blades of an Exacto knife that are commonly used. The fiberglass brush is perfect for the fur textures I do, giving a soft effect like a blunt graphite pencil. When you vary the pressure on the brush you can control how much ink you scrape off the board.
The way to approach a scratchboard is to scratch over the whole image on the board then re-ink sections by brushing on diluted ink with a watercolor brush on the areas that need to be darker. Then you re-scratch them when they are dry. I prefer to use an airbrush instead of a watercolor brush as I have found it gives me a softer, smoother gradation quicker. ‘Quick’ is the motivating word for me as scratching is such a slow painstaking process. This process of scratching back and layering ink is repeated as many times as you need until you get the depth or 3 dimensional look you want.
A year later a wildlife artist called Sandra Temple offered a workshop in Queensland. I enrolled to find that what I thought was my inability to scratch correctly, was actually my use of inferior art materials. Now with the correct materials, I was off and running.A good brand of scratchboard is called Ampersand, which is made in the USA. Since last year the Ampersand scratchboard is readily available in Australia through Art stores that stock Canson products.
In 2012, I entered my first International exhibition, it was the International Society of Scratchboard Artist’s (ISSA) Annual Exhibition, which was to be held in Vancouver, Canada. My attitude was ‘let’s have a go’, not believing that I would win anything. To my astonishment and delight, I won the top award in my category - Gold, Best in Show, in the Open Category for my piece called ‘Nip’. This was only my fourth ever scratchboard artwork.
In 2013, I was approached by a gallery owner who wanted to represent me. Later that year I held my first Solo Scratchboard exhibition called ‘Stripes, a touch of the Wild’ at The Channon Gallery, located inland from Byron Bay NSW. My work was well received and many of my artworks sold.In 2014 I applied to become accredited with ISSA as a Master Scratchboard Artist (MSA). A wide-ranging and high standard of criteria had to be met before I was accepted by ISSA as an MSA. There are only 4 scratchboard artists in Australia with a Master accreditation. I was amazed to be accepted as I had only been doing scratchboard for a little over 2 years. Later in the year I flew to North Carolina, USA to attend their 3 rd Annual ISSA Exhibition. I entered the ‘Master Category’ and came away with Bronze for my work called ‘Out of the Darkness’. I also had the opportunity to be one of 3 jurors judging the Open Category and to demonstrate my techniques at their weekend workshop. Since then I have entered each year and won an award in the ISSA annual exhibition.
