Wednesday, June 4, 2014

High School Drawing


Pen and ink on scratchboard was my favorite medium when I was 13 years old, and here's a drawing that I had a lot of fun with, a young ape raising a toast in a Renaissance court. 

For those who aren't familiar with scratchboard, it has a clay-coated surface that lets you scratch off white lines from any inked area. 

I can see now, looking back on it, that I was trying all different kinds of styles and textures of ink work, and having a hard time integrating them into one vision. And it's pretty obvious where my photo reference stops. But I guess it was a step in the direction of what I've always loved: imaginative realism and fantastical juxtapositions.
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Tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. Eastern time I'll launch the first video intro to Clementoons here on the blog and on my YouTube channel.

4 comments:

David Webb said...

I remember using this at school, James. Scratchboard (or 'Scraperboard' here in the UK) was used extensively in illustration here, when colour printing was in its infancy. It took over from wood engraving.
One of our most celebrated wildlife artists, Charles Tunnicliffe, used it to depict birds and animals, in books, magazines and adverts for products such as cat/dog food.

Ken said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

That makes most thirteen years feel bad. Ha. Very good, James.

Unknown said...

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