"I Will Twine" is a 7" x 5" black Scratchbord™ panel. I used the same ball of twine in an earlier painting called "Curious," with a cat as the focal point. The textures of the twine and the wood in the background were so fun to depict on a scratchboard that I returned to the subject, this time making the twine itself the focal point. I adopted the title for this artwork from the first words of the Carter family song "Wildwood Flower" - it seemed appropriate for the subject as well as for this time of year, when the forests around my home are bursting with gorgeous blooms of spring wildflowers.
Scratchboarding relies on depicting values from black to white, with many shades of grey in between. For this reason, I usually convert my color reference photo to a black and white photo, making those values much more obvious. I aimed for the ball of twine to be the focal point, so I needed to reserved the brightest whites in that area. The shadow it cast needed to be the darkest value. The rustic wood texture of the background would be a middle value of grey.
My reference photo
I took my reference photos in bright sunlight, tacking the top strand of twine to the top of an old wood cabinet. To compose my painting, I decided on a horizontal format and cropped the best of the photos off-center, knowing the stark shadow would help balance the twine ball itself.
Technically, I used various scratching tools to create this work, starting on the ball of twine itself. I had discovered in "Curious" that scratching the background wood, even with such a light touch that you couldn't feel the scratches with your fingertip, interfered a bit when I later scratched the fur of the cat. So this time I began on the ball of twine before the background. The fibers of the twine were slightly thicker than the scratches an x-acto knife would make, so I primarily used the pointed Ampersand Scratchboard Knife tool, which is one of two nibs included in their package, both interchangeable in the provided handle. I paid attention to the twisted ply of the twine in my reference photo and made my scratches to mimic this texture.
Looking now at photo #2 in the in-process collage, I am struck by the dramatic look as if the twine is brightly lit from above. Note to self - explore this stark lighting in a future scratchboard!
After completing the twine's inner core, I worked a fairly even shade of grey in the first layer of scratching the background wood. I used a multi-needle tattoo tool, making irregular fine light scratches in the vertical direction of the wood grain. Deeper areas in the grain were left unscratched to create the appearance of dimension. I wanted to preserve this darkest value in the shadow, and I thought if I could mask the shadow shape off my next layer would not disturb it.
Close-up details
I came up with a plan, hoping it would work since I never tried this before: I used blue painters' masking tape and stuck overlapping pieces to a piece of ordinary wax paper so it would be easy to lift off. I layed a black and white copy of my reference photo (on plain copier paper) so the shadow shape was over my blue tape, then I used an x-acto knife to cut around the shape, cutting through all layers at once: the reference photo copy, the blue tape, the wax paper. It was easy to peel off the blue shape from the wax paper, and then position it in place on my scratchboard panel. Photo #4 in the collage above shows the shape removed from the blue taped area, photo #5 shows the mask in place. Next I went across the entire background with another layer of fine vertical scratches to lighten it. I scratched just to the edge of the shadow area, and, where the blue masking was adhered, it prevented my scratches from marking that part of the board. I was delighted to pull off the blue mask and see my success! A bit more fine light scratches within the shadow area was all that was needed to make it blend with the rest of the background wood texture.
The frosting on the cake are the random leggy fibers which take off in every direction from the rolled ball of twine. I tried to vary the thickness of these lines, turning the knife tool as I scratched. These marks give it character... and they were so fun to scratch! I used a fine black Pigma Micron pen to draw in the fine black lines of these fibers in the edges of the shadow area.
I had added colored inks to "Curious," but I didn't feel the need to add color to "I Will Twine." The simplicity of the black and white image presented my subject exactly as I had envisioned.
"I Will Twine" is one of two scratchboards of mine which will be featured in the online 2022 Members Show of the International Society of Scratchboard Artists, along with my "Silly Selfie."
