Museum of Bad Art Entry

Done with a ten-year-old ScratchArt kit using a wooden scratcher.

I am still laughing over this one.  To keep practicing, I thought I would do some ScratchArt today.  ScratchArt is just what it sounds like--you take a heavily-coated black tile and use a wooden stick to scratch off the coating, revealing what's under it.

Same tile, run through an iPhone camera app, heavily filtered (for disguise??).

This falls into the "you never know what you are going to get" category.

Except.

When your ScratchArt tiles are all ten years old or older, you can be pretty sure that over time the black coating will have adhered itself like super glue to the surface of the paper and scratching will be about 40 times harder than it should be.

Such was the case here.

Using an extremely dull piece of wood was also a factor.

As was lack of practice.

Result:  a vibrant candidate for the Museum of Bad Art.  (Which is one of my all-time favorite places to go when I need a mood booster. Do check out that link--it's a real place.)

And I am still laughing.

It's similar to meditation:  the process can dig up some very stuck stuff and the results aren't pretty at times (even when run thru an iPhone filter, which, alas, no meditation app can do). 

A sense of humor really helps.

Yup, I'm gonna keep on practicing.  Stick with me, ok?

PS, if you'd like to try your own hand at ScratchArt, click that link to get the cheap stuff at amazon.  Note that my set is so old it doesn't even look like this anymore but it's by the same people.  If you prefer to work with better quality materials, just google "scratch art paper" and you'll find some high-quality options that will make a huge difference in the quality of your finished product.  Tools really do make all the difference.  Search the web and you'll see some stunning art made this way, using better tools (and more consistent practice).