Many people cannot believe that Cathy Sheeter’s highly realistic animal artwork is created just scratching into an ink coated board, but that’s exactly how she does it. She works using the amazing medium of Scratchboard, which helps bring her creations to life in a way that no other medium can.
This is a unique medium as it’s subtractive. She starts with a solid black ink coated board and scratches away the ink with sharp tools to reveal a layer of white clay that is beneath the ink. The more she scratches, the lighter that area will become, allowing her to create a range of tones. Sometimes, she applies transparent ink over the scratches to create color images.
She has been creating animals in scratchboard for almost two decades, but she still finds it exciting when a new piece of work starts to come to life. So, while it can be difficult to believe, every hair, dot, and dimple is scratched by hand – her works are not photographs! Large works can take many months to complete, and even smaller ones can take many hours.
Check out a selection of her amazing work below!
