Sgraffito

Natalie Goldberg in her book, "Writing Down the Bones" said that if we want to learn something, to teach it.This is not the first time I have heard this. So I did a second sgraffito work after I finished the first and had some success with it. I am not sure if this is legitimately sgraffito because I used scratchboard and layered color pencils over the top of it. I wanted color and I wanted a layer of white underneath the color. The composition was just me laying in a simple drawing with no clear design. There are no rules for the most part, though the design is asymmetrically balanced I think because it seems to hang together pretty well. Asymmetrical balance simply means that the elements of design are off center, but the brain perceives it as being balanced overall. There are three tulips, a sun, and two clouds.  If there was three clouds and three tulips, and no sun this would be symmetrical balance. It is perfectly balanced with equal numbers of clouds and tulips. It seems to me when I was in school that this was easier to explain. Perhaps diagrams would make it less confusing.  OOO is a balanced composition, or symmetrical. OXO is unbalanced, or asymmetrical. If you used a diagram like OXO, this could be seen as asymmetrical, because not all the elements are not the same but the brain still sees it as balanced. I had the opportunity to be a counselor some years ago and I found that teaching was the most rewarding thing I ever did. I hope that my explanation makes sense to those reading this.
     I used three types of scratching devices to do the composition. I used a scratch awl which is a device to make small holes in wood. It is often used by picture framers. I used a dental tool that I bought from ebay and I used an xacto knife with a # 11 blade. The drawing is done on six inch by six inch Ampersand scratch board covered with colored pencils. I have several pieces of scratchboard left, they come in packages of three in this case.  My next attempt will probably be to find out how to lay in colors like red and yellow.  It seems to me that Youtube is a much better way to do these demonstrations, but my equipment is limited. I hope this is helpful for anyone starting out in sgraffito and scratchboard. Good luck with your art. God bless. Dale