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Heatherzart — Emerging
Published: 2010-10-09 15:39:22 +0000 UTC; Views: 24310; Favourites: 1553; Downloads: 0
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Description
36" x 24"Scratchboard and Ink
The client asked for a tiger coming out of the dark and he wanted him to be menacing - snarling even. You see he was in Vietnam and he said tigers were the thing that scared him the most when he was in the jungle at night. He wanted a picture to remind himself of that terrible beautiful creature that haunted his dreams....... tall order, right?? We settled on this pose since I didn't have any snarling references and I think he was happy in the end.
Got my tiger back from the client last week and had a professional photo taken of it. Now I can offer prints here and through my website. I have four maybe five more to collect and then I'm all caught up. Time consuming and expensive project!
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Comments: 139
this is probably one of the coolest things ive ever looked at. this ISNT digital art and it looks more real than a photograph? HOW! I'd love to know 
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Scratchboard is basically a layer of black paint over a color below. Once the top layer is scratched off, it reveals the bottom layer. Obviously, this guy's is way more advanced than that, but that's the gist of it. It really makes you appreciate how awesome this work is in context to the medium.
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o yeaaahhh i know what it is now...i rmeber doing those in art class in the 2nd grade
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Very striking...composition of light and shadow make the subject very compelling...one cannot tell if the emotion of the tiger is predatory, feigned indifference, hunger or just innocent. I like this picture quite a bit.
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I really like your works. They are amazing. And scratchboard is really difficult to do.
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Oh my god, I LOVE this piece of work! Tigers are one of my favorite kind of animals, and you scratched this so neatly and nicely, I had to favorite it.
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OMG I though this was a photograph at first, this is simply amazing.
The only thing that I'd say needs repair is the front paw's dewclaw. It seems too long, as it's another toe. They're usually smaller
Anyway, regardless of that tiny detail, this is absolutely stunning, I wish I could draw something like this <3333
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Impressive!! 
--
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder 
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Oh I love this, it is really breathtaking, well done!! hugs Jane xx
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I think I have to go... It looks so natural, I'm afraid it's gong to kill me.
Masterpiece.
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This is such a very fantastic piece, My birthday is wednesday (march 9th) I will be putting money in my paypal to buy this print. Very nice job.
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This is just gorgeous! The fur is soo lifelike, I have played around with scratchboard a few times myself but I don't think I could ever achieve this level of lifelikeness. The added ink color is also awesome! Great job!!
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Obviously the front leg is brighter to emphasize on the movement, on the fact he's reaching out forward with it. It might be too bright, I dunno, but perhaps you got it to stick out a liiiiittle bit more than it should because it's in the corner of the picture - it kinda creates some feeling of inclination towards that corner - which, to me, is a little bit irritating to be honest. But then when you look at the leg you get to notice its brilliant anatomy and stunning detail, so I think it's still rather ok.
Anyway, just my opinion. Brilliant work, and nice critique
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Thanks so much for your input. Sorry for the late response, I'm a bit buried in comments at the moment. A good problem to have but I feel bad that I'm not getting back to everyone. This picture has been sitting in my studio for six months now waiting for the owners to decide how to frame it - I just want it to go away so I don't look at all the mistakes I made.
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Oh, gods, you must take it much easier on yourself. You did brilliant with this one! Besides, who doesn't make mistakes? I know how you feel very well, because any time I finish something, I can see so many mistakes. But sometimes people tell me that even the mistakes are in their places. I think that's the case with this picture as well. I do love it, as well as many others, although I know that you probably can see many more mistakes than anyone else ever will. Still.... even if you did make them, make use of them - learn from them
Cheerz, and don't worry - better late than never
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This work is gorgeous! First i thougt it was a photo! It looks so real. This picture is just amazing!
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My jaw...it is on the floor!!! The lighting is so powerful, the eyes so real! All I can say is 'damn'!
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incredible! I need to get to work on my scratchboards too!
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this is truly a wonderful piece of art. You worked very detailed and I like the way you've applied the colour so naturally and not over the top. Lots of shading and variation in colour makes it really stand out!
I'm just about to try my first scratchboard work (of a lion). Is there anything you can tell me about the inking that I should know right from the start? I've started the scratching very detailed right from the beginning on... but I'm not sure wether I should rather start of more general with shading rather then detail....?
Do you think a scratchboard could be coloured with watercolour instead of ink?
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Hi, thanks. When I colorize, I scratch the whole thing out just so I can have all the different directions and transitions mapped out and then I start to layer my ink. You can probably use watercolor but I worry about gumming up your surface. Ink has a dry almost powder coat appearance when it dries and it scratches through very smoothly. Also - with so much black to be worked into your picture, it's easy for everything to look very dark and muddied. I like the inks because they are almost too bright and vibrant and I think they show better. Also I apply the ink very diluted - I fill each well in a plastic (or styrofoam) egg carton with water and add five to ten drops of ink in each one - mixing several different colors together. Raw sienna, burnt sienna and sepia are my browns, a basic yellow, orange and green, magenta and cyan for mixing and of course a watery black and that has gotten me thru all of my pictures so far. By layering the diluted ink, I build up the color slowly and there is less glare on the surface. Scratchboard is very unforgiving because it is so smooth, it shows every fingerprint, smudge, scratch and glare from anything laid on top. You'll notice that applying the inks full strength will leave a nasty film and the colors will be unnatural. Even layering will leave a little bit of film but several coats of a workable matt fixative will take it away when you're finished.
I will put four to ten layers of ink on an area then scratch through it and repeat the process 5 or six times until I have the right variation and depth of color. My first one (the cheetah) I probably scratched over the entire image 15 times just trying to get the color right. It would be too dark then too light then too dark again. Working with ink is definitely different - there is a learning curve, it's not like using watercolors. Now I'm a little more efficient, the tiger probably took 5 or 6 layers. But because I know that I will have to scratch over the same area several times I'm very conservative, I scratch lightly to preserve as much of the surface as possible. And I use a pretty big brush and work fairly wet. I'm finding that I go back in some areas with a really tiny brush and stronger ink to emphasize fur in certain areas but for the most part the scratching provides my detail. And I always finish with an airbrush with straight black ink to go back in certain areas and bring my shadows back. It's tough to maintain shadows so I let my airbrush work help me with that.
Hope that helps - let me know how it goes and if I can offer any more assistance - I'm always here!
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I'll probably not gonna reach anything even near your standard so I might aswell try a monochrome version or one with very few colours for a start. Your work is a very big inspiration for me. I hope one day I'll be able to do something as beautiful as your work of Billy
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It is tough to get supplies in Europe. The Essdee boards are superior in quality but they are on cardboard so I don't know if you'd be able to get them wet anyway. I've talked to a few people who went to dickblick.com and ordered their supplies there. If you get everything at once, you'll only have to pay the international shipping charge once which can be pricey but you can buy the color inks you want and the Ampersand boards. When I shipped international they sent me an e-mail with the price so I could verify before I agreed to it. It wasn't as bad as I thought, I think it was $30. And Ampersand also makes a pack of inks that are very much like kohinor and the color selection is pretty good.
I'm glad to be an inspiration and can't wait to see what you come up with!
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thank you again for your help and advice. I'm going to finish my first one of in b/w... than I'll take a few good photos of it and experiment with differnent inks and watercolour afterwards (I'm probably going to ruin the piece in the process... that's what the good photos are for) If there is really nothing woking with the material I've got, I'll try the international shipping -really a bugger that it's not available in Europe
I've uploaded my first WIP. [link]
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Sorry to interrupt 
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Oh, don't be sorry for giving me such an awsome information. Thank you so much. 
Thank you for your kind words aswell. Yes it's my first and it's still alot of work to do. If I'll ever produce something like Heathers Billy, I'll be the luckiest girl in the world
I've checked on your gallery aswell. You're awsome... especially with digital work. I'm looking forward to see your scratchboard work!!!
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awesome work, this is great and one of the best scratchboards i've ever seen!
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wow I hate to say something negative about a peice so beautiful, but as i was looking at it i notice the back half of the tiger is nonexistent-- I've never tried ink and scratch board before so I don't know how hard it is to get deep tones, but maybe the next time around you could put some indication of the rest of the cat in there. Otherwise, absolutely beautiful!!
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I love it and sorry if this sounds rude i myself don't know much about tiger anatomy and your skill far surpases mine but the paw on my right looks funny, but the rest is amazing!!!
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I would love to suggest something, but I can't beacuse this is perfect~! so grat~! So realistic~! The most awesome tiger ever~!
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OMFG i thought it was REAL! 
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It must be a scratch art thing, but the ruff looks like it would move if you breathed on it, and the paws look velvety to the touch. I've never seen scratch art done like this...it's all been kid-stuff you see at Walmart that you look at and go "mm interesting" and pass up for maturity's sake. But this is great!
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Love the lighting in the eyes here Heather, beautiful colour too. Amazing as always!
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Great work!
tha shading and also the texture is very well done.
his pawn is what I love the most.
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Beautiful! the detail is just intense! very well done
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This is absolutely amazing work. I didn't know one could do something like this with Scratchboard--traditional or digital. Wonderful work. Don't be surprised if this ends up a DD, whether you want it to or not.
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You show some INCREDIBLE craftsmanship, I cannot imagine how you made this piece look so realistic. His fur looks downright beautiful. Fantastic work! (I also wouldn't worry about the paw, its shape looks right to me; they do have very gnarly feet.)
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