"Lost Art"

We stray from our watercolor roots today to bring you a style of art that is really making a comeback. In the 40's, 50's, and 60's this type of illustration known as "scratchboard" was commonly used in newspaper and magazine illustration for black and white and some color ads. "Scratchboard" gets it's name from the fact that an artist would coat a clay based paper with black ink and then scratch deep enough into the clay to leave the white base below. It is basically drawing with pen and ink but in the reverse order, instead of starting with a white sheet of paper and adding ink to it, you start with a black page and take away. You can also put color onto the clay coated board and remove it for your highlights making your illustration more colorful. This type of drawing went out of style for some 30 odd years but is making a comeback because of the retro qualities that it gives to the artist. I had a lot of fun with this piece and will also be bringing you a color piece in the next couple of days. The tools that you use for this style work have not changed, I am still using the same pieces that I bought in college. Learning which size and shape gouge to use took a little time to remember, but besides that everything kind of fell back into place. It was kind of fun not to have to agonize over every pencil line and color wash. I think you will see much more of this style of art in the future from many places such as newspaper, magazine and even television ads. Hope you enjoy and leave some comments below. We are still looking for other artists to highlight their work on our blog. If you know of anyone, drop me a line. Thanks