Looking for the Light in the Darkness through Art.

I know it sounds romantic and cliché. But I am speaking in a textual manner. Give it a try and you will see it.

This time dear steemians I want to invite you to try new things, to experience. I think doing these things is what leads you to be able to see the problems from different angles. Trying to solve the same thing, starting by doing completely the opposite of what you would do regularly, causes the brain to learn new tricks.

Scratchboard

This is not a new technique, in fact many of us did some of these work in our first years.
We filled a cardboard with colored crayons and then we applied a layer of ink on top to then scratch it to make appeare some color lines.
It´s the same. This is a cardboard with a layer of clay covered with ink to achieve the same effect.

Doing the opposite.

This technique known as scratchboard has that peculiarity.
When we work on a paper or a canvas, which are regularly clear, with pencil or brush we almost always register shadows and halftones. Here, being the black surface, what we register is light, every scratch we make to remove a bit of the ink that covers the clay layer, we are digging up the figure that is hidden.
It is still a drawing process, but it has always seemed to me as if it were actually something closer to the sculpture, where you are removing what exceds from the marble block, until leaving the figure that existed inside it clean. It's such a meticulous process that I feel like an archaeologist cleaning up that new find.

Faith

The other big difference is that you can only correct minimal errors, here you can not use a rubber or cover it with another layer of paint. Although you can put ink again on some area that you have already scratched, it is quite noticeable, either by the contrast of brightness or because under the ink you can still see the grooves and if we go further, it is almost impossible to apply the layer again of clay to cover those marks.
So it's a technique that requires a little more faith.

The Prize

In return you get a drawing with the maximum contrast and the greatest richness in the lights you've seen before. The textures and especially everything that has hair, with this technique you can achieve what you never imagined.
For the fur of the faithful Lola I also used my always faithful artist's knife, which gave me a stroke 10 times finer than the sharpest pencil, and patience, lots, and lots, and lots of patience.

Ladies and Gentleman, with you..
Lola

Hope you like it

With furry love
-Monk