Scratching with Scissors!

Rather than painting, drawing and sculpting or other "typical" types of art-making, I thought one activity that would be fun to do is to use a scratchboard. Many people may not know that such a media exists in art-making, and up until I took an art course in grade 12, I was unaware of this form of media as well.

TEXTURE:
 (tkschr)

n.

"The surface quality of a work of art." (Schirrmacher & Fox, 2009)

Materials used for the Activity

This activity is fun to do, allows us all to be creative and requires only very few materials! All you need is a scratchboard which you can get at any craft store such as Micheal's or Curry's. A small piece is only about a dollar or so. The scratchboards come in white and black, gold and black, silver and black, or multicoloured and black. You will also need something sharp that you can scratch the board with to reveal the colours under! This can be a toothpick, a thumbtack, the sharp end of a compass or even she tip of a lead pencil! Here I am using a carving tool that I had at home, but really you can use anything sharp.

Me doing the activity...

It's a simple way to do art, as it is almost like drawing, but because of the scratching aspect it creates a more interesting texture and dimension to the piece. Although, it IS hard to correct mistakes so I suggest those who will attempt to do this to lightly draw out a sketch of what they want to scratch before actually using your sharp tool and scratching on the surface!

The finished Product!

                              
 You can choose to only use the scratchboard and frame the image, but here I took the extra step of cutting the scratch board in half (the black areas) and then mounting it to the back of a white bristol board so that it looks like two separate panels. On the white board, I used black indian ink to extend the images created on the scratchboard to show more dimension with the balance of negative and positive spacing.

Insights for Early Childhood Education
This activity will be fun for children, but when working with children it is important to supervise them when doing this activity depending on the age group, because the tool used to create it is sharp. It will also be more fun for children to scratch the multicoloured scratchboards because it will be more interesting rather than only using neutral colours. If the age group is younger, it may help to draw the image on for them first and let them trace it, which will make it less difficult for them to draw it out themselves. Although it is important to keep in mind that children should be given opportunities to be CREATIVE, so unless they were really struggling to do draw the images out themselves, and ask for help, do not take over and deprive them of creative expression!

Reference:

            Schirrmacher,R., & Fox, J.E. (2009). Art and creative development for young children (6^th Ed.). Belmont, CA: Delmar.