Putting Scratchboard on the Map

Like most people in their 20s, Colorado wildlife artist Nelson Tucker spent many of those years carving out his own identity. Today, carving is vital to his art.

“I’m going to stick with scratchboard for a while,” he says. “I’ve always had a love for black and white and love the different values and shapes that you can get out of it.” Though he also does pen-and-ink drawings, as well as pencil-on-paper, Tucker’s passion is for scratchboard.

Tucker discovered scratchboard art when he was 10 and fell in love with the process of carving into an inked, black surface to reveal the white below the surface. His parents encouraged him, but he found it difficult to find anyone who could help him learn the technique he needed. “All the art classes as a kid and college courses never taught scratchboard,” he says. “I just studied on my own to try to pick up the skill set.”

Read the full article in the January/February 2025 issue.