Lest you think I’ve turned this blog into an all-t-shirts, all-the-time promotional vehicle, I give you the Friday Fish (well, turtle) as a stand-alone piece of art.

For the uninitiated, scratchboard is an art technique that is reductive- you start with a board that has two layers, and scratch the top layer to reveal the bottom. Little kids do this a lot with crayons, and the effect is cool. The grown-up version is also cool, but I like the digital version the best. Basically you make a brightly-colored gradient on one layer, fill with black on the layer above, and then use your eraser/pen combo on your tablet to render your subject (you’re using your eraser as your primary tool in this case. It’s reductive!). It’s more forgiving that way.

Is anybody interested in a tutorial? I think I’m going to make a tutorial of what is a really fun computer drawing technique.

And actually? I lied about not promoing a t shirt in this post. The merchandise for this design looks awesome.

Tags: aquatic, art, art technique, Friday Fish, ocean, scratchboard, sea life, sea turtle, t shirts