Christmas Scratch Art & DIY Scratch Art Sheet Experiments

Immy and I have had fun making our own scratch art sheets with oil pastels many times, however in the past we have stuck with the more traditional black scratching surface over a coloured background. When we decided to create some Christmas art using the scratch art technique we started out the same way but then we decided to experiment with colour!

We started out making Christmas tree inspired scratch art pieces using oil pastels.

Scratch art sheets are so easy to make yourself with this method. You just colour a small piece of heavy paper or lightweight matte cardstock with coloured oil pastels, in whatever patterns or blocks of colour that you like. Once your page is all covered you colour all over it again, this time with a black pastel. Then the sheet is ready for the scratching magic!

Although we both loved the completed artworks on the black sheets we both wondered if we could make green and red ones so that we could really get into the spirit of the Christmas season! I also wondered if we could use something other than pastels for the background of the scratch art sheets – like metallic or fluorescent markers.

It took quite a lot of experimentation with different colours and backgrounds but we did it! Along the way we learned that you have to pretty much stick with warm colours that are lighter than your red pastel for the red sheets and cool colours lighter than your green pastel for the green. Here are some examples;

Above left: A background coloured with brightly coloured pastels that works with the more traditional black upper layer of oil pastel.

Above right: A warm coloured background created with Sharpie markers. This one worked well with the red oil pastel upper layer.

Above left: A warm coloured oil pastel background that worked perfectly well with the red upper layer.

Above right: A light coloured oil pastel background that worked with the green upper layer, as seen in the completed scratch art piece below.

We also experimented with both metallic oil pastels and metallic markers to create backgrounds. As long as we stuck with silver and gold, the results were fabulous (see Santa at the bottom as an example).

We use a regular old popstick/craft stick to scratch out our pictures. The flat end of a pencil or a toothpick work well too.

Overall, it was lots of fun to experiment with the different colours and mediums. Just be sure to cover your work surfaces before you begin as scratch art can be a little messy!

And now we have lots of fabulous pieces of Christmas art to display in our home!

Have you tried making your own scratch art sheets before?