. . Hanna Aalto . .

There has been this Bittern painting on my easel for a couple of weeks now. It is now half way done. Here are work in progress (wip) pictures.

These tools are used in scratchboard technique. Both have soft handles made of crushed tissue paper and fabric tape. Thicker brush is made of thin steel needles and a copper pipe. Needles were placed to the tube with glue and then pipe was hammered flat. Smaller brush is meant for polishing silver clay items.

In scratchboard style you reveal clay layer by scratching paint. White kaolin can be then dyed with thing color washes.

Tools made for this work are quite expensive and they loose sharpness soon. I ordered for testing these tattoo machine needless that have same structure as scratching tools. There are thin steel needles soldered side by side. First tests look promising. Lines are a bit thinner than in official tools. But for some details like feathers this tool would be great.

I will try to make wooden reusable handle for these.

Some scratchboard artists have had problems with their scratchboards when humidity is very high. Since every artist do what, that their work will tolerate normal conditions.

I use nowadays only Ampersand claybords as surface for my paintings. I decided to test these hardboards that are covered with thin layer of kaolin clay. I have this ruined incomplete painting available for testing. It was more than 3 months in bathroom next to steamy sauna. Humidity varied weekly from 20% to 100% and temperature from +20 °C up to +35 °C.

After this kind of treatment I was prepared to see some damage, but I could not find anything!

I am currently working with these four paintings. Three of them portray Ruffs displaying and fourth one has Slavonian Grebes. All of the paintings are now in stage where even I question all the time is it possible to complete them to proper paintings. When working with this scratchboard technique you just have to see into future!

I tested using latex masking fluid in the Grebe painting. I realised right away when erasing the stuff away, that it does not work well in this kind of paintings. Edge lines are just too harsh. Painting and scratching process would be easier if I use only light paper masks or just paint the firs layers by freehand. Sometimes there can be then problem when objects in painting have veil of over flown paint around them. This excess paint layer is usually possible to erase or cover.