Fox | Posted: Nov. 11, 2016, 12:54 a.m.

Media: Scratchboard paper, Faber Castell pen, Black marker

Time: ~7 hours (because I worked on this piece in intervals)

I had a lot of fun with this piece, mostly because I was able to work on realism. I was surprised by how much I liked scratchboard as a medium, and I hope I'll work with it again.

Working with scratchboard is a bit scary at first since you can't erase an accidental or inaccurate stroke. In addition, typically when I draw, I use placement aids and tools like circles and local grids, both of which I erase later.

A quarter into this piece, I realized that some strokes desperately needed to be "erased." At that point, I thought about using black acrylic paint or ink. I settled on using media that I had at hand -- Faber Castell pen and black marker. I used the Faber Castell pen to cover individual strokes. Unfortunately if you look at the real piece, you can see where exactly I used pen because the pen leaves a glossy residue on the paper. I thought using a black marker to cover the background would leave a similar residue and even out the piece. However, that wasn't the case, when viewing the piece, you can clearly see the marker strokes.

However, thanks to the beauty of digital editing, I was able to increase the contrast of the photograph and erase any trace of pen and marker strokes. If you look closely, you may still see them.