Technique
a form of decoration made by scratching through a surface to reveal a lower layer of contrasting colour
(Oxford Languages)
7 December 2020
This week I will be teaching a drawing lesson on natural forms and could not think of a sunnier and more fragrant object to draw right now than orange slices, which these days can be found on many a holiday garland or wreath, adding a lively pop of colour. For this lesson, I want to introduce students to an alternative application of drawing through the ornamental technique of sgraffito, which has been used to decorate many beautiful Renaissance façades and is also commonly used in ceramics.
Sgraffito requires two contrasting layers, the top of which is scratched through to reveal the layer underneath. Whilst sgraffito has a long history in wall décor and ceramics, this subtractive technique can also be approximated using paint and any object you can scratch with. I’ve worked on this with students in the past as they produced gorgeous, intricate transcriptions of Ming porcelain vases using two layers of oil pastel. But it can also be done with a combination of oil and acrylic, with slow-drying oil paint applied over dried acrylic, creating ideal conditions for scratching a doodle, design or motif into existence! Below are some samples of what the students are being asked to achieve.
To warm up and get looking at our subject matter, we’ll begin with short timed drawing exercises in pen, then move on to covering a 4” x 4” pre-painted acrylic panel with a generous layer of oil pastel and ‘scratching’ our drawings in using cocktail sticks and popsicle sticks. These art activities have been designed to encourage some personal exploration with the possibilities of image-making using multiple layers, mediums and tools, as well as the numerous creative possibilities within the medium of drawing. Whilst drawing often calls to mind achromatic pencil or pen sketches, it can also be colourful, subtractive, and multimedia! Different colour combinations too can introduce different design challenges and produce vastly different images. To view the presentation, including instructional videos demonstrating each art activity, click the button below.
And because I myself so enjoy the magic of ‘sgraffito drawings,’ I embarked on my own mini explorations on larger sheets of paper, trying different compositions, playing with multiple colours of acrylic paint and oil pastel, working with different tools (including the end of a paintbrush!), and finding different ways of expressing through drawing the patterns and textures within dried orange slices and clementine halves.
