Back to the Stations

You may remember - long, long ago - before I embarked on the workshop posts, I did one on how to Make your own Scraperboard, which I had happened upon as a way to make the Stations of the Cross for Good Friday. It's not entirely appropriate now as we celebrate the happy, joyous side of Easter - but I've been scraping away at my prepared boards in between other things, using my son as a model (cause for contemplation) for some of the figure studies and summoning other images, scratch by scratch, out of the blackness. I haven't had a chance to sit down and scan, photograph and post all the images until now. For those who are interested in seeing all the Stations, they are over here at the brand new St Peter's blog.

The torso and the disembodied hands on the big wooden cross that is a permanent fixture of the church garden worked well - unobtrusive but drawing a closer look.

For anyone who might want to try this technique, a few things I've discovered...

• Do put two coats of white paint on the undercoat and two layers of wax polish, it doesn't give a bright white line through the black ink with just one.
• Don't prepare your board too far in advance - if the Indian ink gets too dry and brittle, it chips off rather than scrapes cleanly.
• On paper, this seems to be quite a stable medium, but on board it is very fragile! A splash of water or a brush past of a sleeve lifts the ink right off the wax surface so when finished...
• Seal the finished art with a spray varnish - I used Grumbacher gloss acrylic painting varnish - not a paint-on varnish or medium, the ink will wipe off like water from a duck's back!
• A craft knife with a snap-off blade is great for producing a wide variety of lines from broad
  sweeps with the flat edge to the finest thin line - I found I didn't need anything else.

Make your own scraperboard

I've been very busy!! Some nice visitors and company, and necessary cleaning up operations beforehand - and I was asked, last year in fact, to make some images for The Stations of the Cross for our church, but I had too much other work on. I thought I'd have plenty of time this year, but once again, it's a rush. I've pondered for weeks on what to do, and how to do it in an economical way, as well as fast and effective. One wee-hours-of-the-morning rumination brought forth the memory of this method of making homemade scraperboard that I learnt years ago in an art class, and which I used to make the above sketch of my daughter - still in a school uniform at the time, so it's a good ten years ago. This is too big for the scanner and in a frame, so not the best reproduction. It's not the sort of scraperboard you can make those perfect, highly detailed illustrations on, but it's great for loose marks and ready-made textures, which are quite a surprise as you pass over various brushstrokes and layers of polish. Here's how you do it, for anyone who's interested...

I did it on fairly heavy paper the first time, but this time I've used Masonite, as it needs to be sturdy and hung easily with string or wire.

1. Lightly sand the board so paint will stick - this step not necessary on paper support.
2. Freely paint with white PVA. Don't worry about getting the brushstrokes too smooth if you want texture. Let it dry well and give it another coat if needed. Dry well again.
3. Apply wax clear floor polish with a soft cloth, let dry, polish lightly and apply another coat. Allow to dry and harden.
4. Paint on Indian ink with a large soft brush. The wax will resist the ink at first, but keep at it...
5. After three or four passes and cross-brushing, the ink will stick and cover the white paint
6. I varied the edges of the boards, leaving some rough and some covered right to the edge.
7. Allow to dry thoroughly.
8. Start scratching!

I use a small craft knife to scrape with, which gives me various line widths from very fine to broad depending on how its held, but you can use whatever works best for you. Brush off loose ink that's been scraped off with a soft dry brush.

* A Warning! I got some raindrops splashed on one of my boards, and the ink just lifted straight off. I'm going to have to work out how to seal them to make them less fragile.

I'm not sure if I'll use this hand in the series - it is my hand and although I tried to make it look more masculine (I have pretty workman-like hands anyway), it still looks like mine. Though this was very quick to draw, I need to get scraping, as Easter rushes up - in between my workshop next week and preparations for that, and 100 other things going on right now. I am hoping it will sometimes be a peaceful, meditative Lenten process in spite of the time pressures.