Weisz, Robert–Four Steps in a Scraper Board Head
Well into the 1960s specialists in scraper board illustration (known in the US as scratchboard) were in demand. Scratchboard was a clay-coated card stock which would be covered with Indian ink, Using special tools the artist modelled his subject by scraping away the ink. The engraving-like white-on-black result was striking., However scratchboard’s main appeal to advertisers was practical. Scratchboard drawings gave a photographic effect but they reproduced well on cheap papers (e.g. newsprint) on which real photos came out dull and muddy. Cars and machinery looked especially good in scratchboard. This four-step tutorial by Austrian commercial artist Robert Weisz appeared in Scraping Technique by Oskar Vangerow (Vienna, Josef Eberle KG, 1959).
