Scratchboard makes Artwalk debut

Published 5:39 pm Wednesday, September 23, 2015

GINGER GEHRES LAYERS UPON LAYERS: Ginger Gehres will demonstrate her scratchboarding technique at Friday’s Artwalk in downtown Washington. The pictured work was part of Gehres’ submissions in earning master scratchboard status and took two years to complete.

GINGER GEHRES
LAYERS UPON LAYERS: Ginger Gehres will demonstrate her scratchboarding technique at Friday’s Artwalk in downtown Washington. The pictured work was part of Gehres’ submissions in earning master scratchboard status and took two years to complete.

Friday, downtown galleries and businesses invite the public to come tour Washington’s art scene during Artwalk from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

While many galleries will exhibit guest artists, new work and host mini-receptions, one gallery will focus on a unique artistic medium featuring recent Washington transplant and artist Ginger Gehres.

Gehres hews art from scratchboard, a hardboard panel coated with smooth clay, then covered with a coat of India ink. Scratching away layers, adding new layers of ink and washes, gives the piece texture, shade and dimension as the artist carves out his or her vision from an initial blank, black canvas.

Exacto knives, tattoo needles, fiberglass brushes, sand paper, colored inks and airbrush are just some of the tools Gehres may use to peal layers back to reveal her works of art. Friday, at Lemonade, she’ll be demonstrating how it’s done. The public is welcome to watch, ask questions and even try the medium out on two demo boards Gehres will have on hand.

“I’ve always found that everybody gets a better idea of what I’m doing if they try it,” Gehres said.

Gehres stumbled into the medium at Art of the Carolinas in Raleigh, an event put on by art emporium Jerry’s Artarama. Primarily an oils and acylics painter, she initially had no desire to take up a new project, but at a friend’s urging, she did — and was hooked.

“That was October or November four years ago,” Gehres said. “I just fell in love with it.”

In that time, Gehres has achieved master scratchboard status with the International Society of Scratchboard Artists, but she’s a lifelong artist — her grandmother was a nationally recognized painter, so becoming an artist was a natural progression.

“I grew up with it. I thought every house was an artist’s house until I got to school and then realized they weren’t,” Gehres said.

Now a guest artist at Lemonade, Gehres’ work will be on display at the gallery and she’ll host a scratchboard workshop there on Nov. 7.

Lemonade Art Gallery is located at 201 W. Main St., Washington.