Art 365: Everyday Art Activities
Scratch Art: Bye Bye, Astronaut
Technique-in-Brief – Oil Pastel Scratching: Layer two or more different oil pastel colours, one on top of another. Apply pressure strokes and scratch over the top layer of oil pastel with a sharp edge (a painting knife, (satay) stick or a fork), to magically reveal the oil pastel colours underneath.
Vary the pressure of your strokes and the number of colour overlays, the more fun children can have creating their secret drawings. Best effects are obtained with a dark top layer, or layers with contrasting colours.
What You Need
Drawing Paper
Waxy Crayons
Black Acrylic or Gouache Paint
Pencil
A Sharp Tool for Scratching (Fork, Skewer)
Rub Your Magical Background
Every scratch artwork begins with a magically colourful background. To prepare your background, choose colours that are pop brightly in contrast with black.
Rub waxy crayons onto drawing paper. Leave no white spaces, and rub as thickly as you can. Opt for waxy crayons, since they are softer, and allow the black paint layer to be rubbed off easily later.
Hide the Background: Paint it Black!
Before you get into the fun of scratching, we need to hide the colourful background. Paint over your waxy crayon background with black acrylic or gouache paint with a wide, flat brush. Water-based acrylic paints do not mix with the waxy oil-based crayons, so the black paint forms a layer above the crayons.
Cover evenly. Paint should be quite thick but not lumpy. Allow the black paint to air dry completely, or use a hair dryer if you can’t wait!
The colourful background, hidden for now…
Sketch Out Your Drawing
Sketch out your artwork or patterns onto the dried black paint layer. We especially like fantasy scenes, such as this outer space scene, “Bye Bye, Astronaut.”
Now the fun begins! Scratch away the black paint by scratching or etching with a sharp tool to reveal the waxy magically colourful background. We used a flat screwdriver, but you can also use skewer (satay) sticks or a metal ruler.
Thick lines give the best effect! It may take a bit more time, so be patient. Rub away surplus dried paint.
More Ideas
Try different worlds and environments: Use a background mixture of blue and green, and scratch out a world of underwater sea creatures. Or go with gold and silver crayon backgrounds for a mysterious and ancient looking artwork!
Different mediums: Use coloured pencils for the background layer, paired with black crayon top layer (instead of black paint). The soft black crayon does not mix with the pigments in the coloured pencils and makes it easy to lift up from the paper.
