Scratchboard Art: Hatching

Week before last I started a tutorial series on getting started in scratchboard art. Today I’m back with my take on hatching. I know I’ve done an egg today, but it’s not that kind of “hatching” I’m talking about a series of parallel lines. As you can see from my egg, if you’re trying to depict a round surface, it’s important to keep your changes in value very smooth and gradual or you run the risk of making the object look like it’s been created from a series of shifting planes, rather than one smooth curving line. When scratching hatch lines it’s also important to either make them either all freehand or all with a ruler because using a mix of the two will look uneven. Placing the marks close together will create highlighted or lighter colour areas, while hatching lines spaced farther apart will leave areas looking shadowed or darker in colour.

Hatching is best used to depict smooth, hard surfaces up close. In the scratchboard below (done three years ago – it’s not a great picture, sorry) I used hatch lines to depict the smoothness of the piano keys and the wooden surfaces. To create the illusion of woodgrain, I made the lines much closer together for the lighter area and farther apart for the darker areas.

 Silent Night. Scratchboard and acrylic ink, 9 x 12 in. Copyright 2005, Tania Nault. Private Collection.

But hatch lines can be used to make background items appear to be some distance away, as I did with the sky and cloud pattern in this landscape:

Smith Point Sunset II. Scratchboard, 14 x 9 in. Copyright 2005, Tania Nault. Collection of the artist.

And here’s a detail shot of the area above the left-hand trees to show the variation in shading obtained by varying the space between the lines:

Smith Point Sunset II, detail.

And that’s how I use hatching. Go out, give it a try and if you do, leave me a comment to let me know how it’s going! Next Tuesday, cross-hatching.