I thought it would be nice to look at an older piece of work I had done and explain my thoughts,  the process of doing it and what I would change, with hindsight of course!

The image I have chosen is a scraperboard, for those of you who don't know what scraperboard is, it's a board coated with a thin film of white china clay with a layer of black indian ink over it. Using sharp tools, you scrape off the black to leave a white mark. It can make very striking works of art, originally used by illustrators alot. It can look like lino prints. Some of you may have tried the very simple form at school where you used coloured wax crayons, covered it all over in black wax crayon and scarped bits off! The joy of this is, as long as you have a black crayon, you can keep going over and over it!

I started using scraperboard as a child, selling small bird works to make pocket money! Although for me the fact the line you see is white, my funny brain doesn't see that as a distraction, where I know some find it hard to work out!

When you first start, the simplest thing is to draw, or trace the image on the black surface with a white watercolour pencil ( because it will wipe off ), don't press hard as it may scratch the black off. This can be corrected by painting on a little black indian ink but too many errors will eventually show up. You can use special tools or try a craft tool, though that won't be quite as responsive.

I will be putting together a small scraperboard project at a later date, with everything in it to get you started, so keep looking on my blog for the offer!