What is sgraffito, and can you do it digitally?
Sgraffito means scratching through paint to show the layer below. Easel by Zaweba has a sgraffito stylus that does it on screen, for free.
Sgraffito is the technique of scratching through a top layer of paint to reveal the colour or surface underneath. The word comes from the Italian for scratched. You can do it digitally in Easel by Zaweba, a free natural-media painting studio for Windows, which has a sgraffito stylus among its texture and mark-making tools.
Painters use it to draw fine light lines into dark paint, to suggest grass and hair, to add a signature into wet oil, or to make the patterns you see on decorated pottery and plaster. It is quick, direct and very satisfying.
How sgraffito works on real paint
The idea is simple. Lay down one colour and let it dry, or at least firm up. Paint a second colour over it. While the top coat is still workable, scratch into it with something pointed: the end of a brush handle, a palette knife tip, a cocktail stick. Wherever you scratch, the top layer moves aside and the colour below shows through.
The result depends on the paint. Thick, wet oil gives clean grooves with a little ridge either side. Thinner paint gives finer, softer lines. Scratch too early and the two layers smear; scratch too late and the top coat has dried and won't move. Timing is half the skill.
Doing it in Easel
Easel works with real materials on real surfaces, and that is what makes sgraffito possible. Oils stay wet, so you can lay a dark layer over a lighter one and scratch into it with the stylus while it's wet. Gouache, acrylic and watercolour each behave differently, just as they would on paper or board.
Start by choosing a surface. Canvas or a panel suits oil. Paint the bottom colour first, perhaps a warm yellow or a bright blue, and let it dry. Easel's drying speed can be changed if you don't want to wait. Then lay the top colour over the whole area. Pick the sgraffito stylus and draw. The scratched lines show the colour below.
Because Easel lights thick oil with a light you can move, the scratched grooves catch the light like real paint, which adds a lot to the effect.
A related technique: scraperboard
If you like the look of sgraffito, try scraperboard too. It is a board coated in white clay and covered in black ink, made for scratching. Blades scratch it back to white, which gives crisp, engraving-like lines. Easel's wider surface list includes scraperboard, and blades work on it just as they would on the real board.
Other scratch and texture tools to try
The stylus sits with a family of texture tools in Easel: a comb for parallel lines, a graining rocker for wood grain effects, a squeegee for dragging paint across the surface, a colour shaper for pushing paint about, a blending stump and a straw for blowing paint. The palette knife and scraper also push wet paint aside to reveal what's underneath. Combining a comb and the stylus on one passage gives rich surface interest with very little effort.
Making the scratched lines read
Choose colours that contrast, so the scratched lines read clearly. A dark top layer over a light underlayer is the classic choice, but bright over bright works well in decorative pieces.
Keep the top layer fairly thick if you want crisp lines. Thin paint gives a fainter effect.
Plan your scratches loosely before you start. You can undo, and Easel keeps 80 steps by default, but sgraffito looks best when the lines are confident.
Finally, don't overdo it. A few scratched highlights in grass or hair can bring a passage to life, while a whole painting covered in them can look busy. Used sparingly, sgraffito in Easel by Zaweba gives a painting the same tactile quality it has on a real canvas.
