Introduction
Scatters were made by mixing water based, non-toxic, coloured paints to give the desired colour and then mixing in Polenta, Semolina or Couscous until all the paint has been absorbed.
This is then tipped onto kitchen paper, spread out, and left to dry.
When dry it can be blitzed in a small liquidiser or spice grinder to the required degree of fineness or left as-is to produce larger ballast-like material.
Semolina will produce the finest powder and Couscous the coarsest. Polenta is somewhere in between.
Other materials can also be used such as small cut lengths of Hessian (string) or garden twine.
Natural earth from the garden can be lightly warmed in an oven until dry and then used as well.
There really is no limit to what can be used - just use your imagination and experiment (what about sawdust!).
Rather than using a water based paint, food colouring can be used instead and works better with some materials.
