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Description
There's a bit of a story to this piece...

But first, realize this one is pretty old. Because of this, I had to do some minor restoring to the medium, since it had warped through the years of abuse of being chucked behind tables and inside cupboards.
I checked the back and saw a date-stamp marked '2002', which would be about right, since this was made when I was still in high-school. If anyone recognizes the image in question, I'll personally not only commend you on your memory, but also you reflexes and eye-sight as well. The source of the image will be revealed in the story below

The back-story:
One weekend back in my high-school years, I was hanging out with some friends at the house they usually go for band practice. Sometime during the day, one of the guys decided to prank us with one of those 'stare and scare' clips that were so popular at the time... y'know, those flash movies that tell you to spot the hidden figure in an image and urge you to look closely, only to flash something creepy with a loud shriek 30-seconds later... yeah, those ones.
Anyway, after being gullible enough to fall for it, for some reason me and one of the band members (who was with me in art class) were just horribly creeped out by the image, but at the same time fascinated by it. We watched the clip over and over again to catch a better glimpse of the face and eventually went on to creep each other out some more by pointing out how eerie it would be to see the face peering through an attic trap-door, or in the dark hallways of the house we were in.
Come Monday and we were assigned to work with scratchboard in art class. I didn't have the slightest clue what to make and the small dimensions of the boards didn't cater for any good concepts either.
Until when moments later the friend from the weekend told me he 'wanted to show me something' as he pulled out of his bag a black and white print of the eerie face that had creeped us out a few days back.
It turns out that he was able to Alt-PrintScreen at the exact moment the face flashed and decided to print it out. I noticed that the dimensions of the face worked well with those of the scratchboard and that it was already in black and white for easy referencing.
I knew I had found what I wanted to illustrate. With some effort and patience, I was able to finish it pretty well for a scratchboard first timer, and received quite a decent mark for it too.

Many years later, it is now finally restored, custom framed and now happily hangs in the dark corner of my apartment hallway where it belongs, eerily keeping watch over me.

You can find a display of it on my wall here

~ JK
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===Tools Used===
Scratchboard
Etching Tools

===Art Notes===
There's not much to say here. It was the first and last scratchboard piece I did, so if anything, I probably did it incorrectly using the wrong etching tools. Luckily I had a lot of patience with this one, and managed to not entirely overdo it in some areas, leading to irreversible mistakes.
But I still have fond memories with my brief experience with scratchboard as I remember it being a very zen-like experience... crafting and uncovering an image out of the total blackness.
Sadly, all the local art shops around here do not stock scratchboard and can't really help me find one who does, so if I ever would like to do another scratchboard piece, I'm going to have to learn how to make it myself.

Description
There's a bit of a story to this piece...

But first, realize this one is pretty old. Because of this, I had to do some minor restoring to the medium, since it had warped through the years of abuse of being chucked behind tables and inside cupboards.
I checked the back and saw a date-stamp marked '2002', which would be about right, since this was made when I was still in high-school. If anyone recognizes the image in question, I'll personally not only commend you on your memory, but also you reflexes and eye-sight as well. The source of the image will be revealed in the story below

The back-story:
One weekend back in my high-school years, I was hanging out with some friends at the house they usually go for band practice. Sometime during the day, one of the guys decided to prank us with one of those 'stare and scare' clips that were so popular at the time... y'know, those flash movies that tell you to spot the hidden figure in an image and urge you to look closely, only to flash something creepy with a loud shriek 30-seconds later... yeah, those ones.
Anyway, after being gullible enough to fall for it, for some reason me and one of the band members (who was with me in art class) were just horribly creeped out by the image, but at the same time fascinated by it. We watched the clip over and over again to catch a better glimpse of the face and eventually went on to creep each other out some more by pointing out how eerie it would be to see the face peering through an attic trap-door, or in the dark hallways of the house we were in.
Come Monday and we were assigned to work with scratchboard in art class. I didn't have the slightest clue what to make and the small dimensions of the boards didn't cater for any good concepts either.
Until when moments later the friend from the weekend told me he 'wanted to show me something' as he pulled out of his bag a black and white print of the eerie face that had creeped us out a few days back.
It turns out that he was able to Alt-PrintScreen at the exact moment the face flashed and decided to print it out. I noticed that the dimensions of the face worked well with those of the scratchboard and that it was already in black and white for easy referencing.
I knew I had found what I wanted to illustrate. With some effort and patience, I was able to finish it pretty well for a scratchboard first timer, and received quite a decent mark for it too.

Many years later, it is now finally restored, custom framed and now happily hangs in the dark corner of my apartment hallway where it belongs, eerily keeping watch over me.

You can find a display of it on my wall here

~ JK
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

===Tools Used===
Scratchboard
Etching Tools

===Art Notes===
There's not much to say here. It was the first and last scratchboard piece I did, so if anything, I probably did it incorrectly using the wrong etching tools. Luckily I had a lot of patience with this one, and managed to not entirely overdo it in some areas, leading to irreversible mistakes.
But I still have fond memories with my brief experience with scratchboard as I remember it being a very zen-like experience... crafting and uncovering an image out of the total blackness.
Sadly, all the local art shops around here do not stock scratchboard and can't really help me find one who does, so if I ever would like to do another scratchboard piece, I'm going to have to learn how to make it myself.