Product Review - Silver Scratchboard

by Naquaiya, May 2007

I have worked with several foil scratchboards and I like a silver scratchboard that I believe is made by Oasis. Oasis is a British Company. This board is a heavy white board with the weight of a one ply mat board. A sheet of silver foil is adhered to the board and then sprayed with India ink.

Scratching through the board is very tricky because you need to use a light touch and a very sharp tool. If you put pressure on the board, it makes an indentation but also creates a lot of drag when you etch. The most important thing when working with this board is to consider the direction of the lines you etch rather than the depth. The foil will catch the light in certain directions and will be beautiful. You can create different textures by etching in different directions. It kind of reminds me of the old foil art of the 1980's where you had to move the artwork around a little to let the light catch it.

As far as I know of, this board only comes in a few sizes and I have found that Jerry's Artarama carries this product, and it's the only place I have been able to find it. I have never seen it with a manufacturer's stamp on the back of the board. My suspicion is that distributors buy it in large sizes and cut it down to size for retail. Jerry's sells a 10 pack of 12”x18” for around $30 plus freight mail order. Well worth the price.