Hello my friends and welcome to another Tuesday of tutorial!
I am Leonardo Pereznieto and today we will go over the basics for drawing
with pen and ink, both materials and techniques.
The most classic tools for this are the nibs that are inserted in handles
to dip in ink.
They have been used for many hundreds of years.
This for example is a black Indian ink.
You dip it...
about halfway is okay,
and then you simply draw with it
some of the tips of the nibs are wider than others
so an artist usually has different nibs for different purposes.
And you can exchange them in the handle. Some nibs
are flexible, meaning that when you push with some pressure the line is wider
and some are rigid for a consistent line.
When you are done using them you should clean them well with running water
because if the ink dries it may clog them.
And let's insert a different nib which is rigid, non-flexible and it is
thinner than the other one I tested.
An advantage of the dip pens is that they are unexpensive
and so you can have several different types of nibs and also different color inks,
a disadvantage you need to be dipping them in the ink every so often
and that they're not the best for traveling with them.
To solve these problems the fountain pen was invented.
Instead of dipping they have cartridges inside that they feed the nib,
and once empty, you just grab another one
and insert it, like this.
It provides a consistent flow that lasts for a much longer time
so you don't need to be constantly dipping them, it was a great improvement .
Or instead of disposable cartridges sometimes they come with a filling mechanism,
and a reservoir which you fill and then it lasts for a while.
For this you need a bottle of ink like this nice blue, or this burgundy
which is ink for fountain pens.
This pen has brown ink in it.
The one I used above was a medium-sized nib with gray ink,
while this one is fine with blue.
This other one is fine with burgundy
and here is a bold one also with burgundy.
The wide is labeled B and this one is actually BB
which is like double bold.
This pilot Falcon has a soft nib, so if you push it you get a wider mark.
The pros of a fountain pen is that they flow beautifully,
they are romantic, reminding of the old times, but some disadvantages
is that you can get your fingers stained when loading ink from a bottle, or
sometimes they spit [laughter] they can spit in your pocket if it is too hot or too
shaky or things like that.
This is a drawing pen, a fine marker which is a much more modern
and practical tool for ink,
the line is consistent, this is a
0.8 millimeter, while this other one is a 0.3.
A much finer one.
As I said the line is very consistent, which can be good or bad depending what you
intend doing.
They are extremely practical but in my
opinion lack character, comparing them to a fountain pen.
And then we have the brushes also for ink drawing.
As you know they come in all sorts of sizes
and shapes and we need ink or watercolor or something to paint with them,
we can use them to increase the line width or to add color.
They complement very well with markers or pens.
This is similar to a marker with ink inside but the tip is actually a brush.
As the markers, they are really handy.
But the color of the ink is fixed.
While this, you can put water in it,
or ink of any color.
This other brush-pen is an equivalent thing, but more fancy with a brush on the tip
and the reservoir for ink.
Here I loaded it with a very diluted potion for light backgrounds.
If the paper is dumped, the fountain pen ink will run a little, which can give
interesting effects
and that is because this type of ink is not water resistant
which can be good or bad depending on what you want.
Let's make an experiment here.
The first flower is drawn with a fountain pen, the second one with
permanent Indian ink
and this is a brush with plain water.
When we add the water here we dissolve the ink
and so can use it as part of our drawing, like giving
color to these petals and leaf. While this other one, once dry is totally water
resistant and so that allow us to paint over it.
I have to point out that the fountain pen ink
is also not very resistant to light, it is not lightfast,
under the sunlight it will fade.
If you want it to be resistant to light and water, get fountain pen pigment ink.
Okay good! now let's take a look at some of the techniques:
the classic one is called hatching and cross-hatching.
With hatching you make parallel lines which if you set them more apart looks lighter
and you can make them more tight for darkness
or you can also cross them
which is called cross hatching... also too dark them.
Let's see in practice how this would work.
In a box we can do the top very light,
as it is receiving the most light,
then this side will be a medium tone
and this one will be darker.
We can give it another pass if we want, if we want to darken it
and the shadow.
Now let's draw something rounded like a cylinder and we can use broken lines if
we don't want a sharp edge.
We can shade a rounded surface in different ways:
One is still with straight lines
like so
but another one, which describes better the shape,
is following the contour, or the form-- the volume of the object.
For a pear for example we can sketch the silhouette with dotted or broken lines so that
afterwards we don't see them,
and then shade with its volume.
Imagine as if we were drawing on the actual surface of the pear.
By the way the list of the materials I am using
and showing is in the description below the video.
You do not necessarily need to shade like that, you can also doodle, if you want.
Shade by scribbling...
just make the scribbling motion tighter or in layers to go darker.
Or you can just freely doodle away with no prior sketch.
This is extremely relaxing.
And test sprinkling some drops of water if you want that effect.
Since the ink cannot really be erased, especially when drawing with absorbent
paper, if we want a reflection or a light spot we should leave it blank, but if we
in a mistake cover it, there is a solution:
very carefully you can lightly scratch the paper with a knife...
pull in the light, for this of course to work you need to have a fairly thick paper.
Another solution although maybe not as purist of the technique,
is to get the white pigment marker and draw the light with it.
Rough or highly texture paper is not very good for pen and ink.
And papers that may shed lint, that is particles of it, may clog your pen.
An excellent paper for pen and ink is the bleed proof,
which is really smooth to the touch.
And the nib lies on it beautifully.
But if you want to paint some washes like with a brush,
this doesn't hold it well. In that case I
recommend using hot-pressed, that is fine grain, watercolor paper,
like on this demonstration that I will do to end the video.
Here first I sketched the figure with pencil,
and now I'm adding a little bit of grayish blue watercolor paint...
a light wash to the areas of shade.
I'm leaving white all the areas of light.
I get the paper damp at the lower part of the hair so that the paint runs a
little bit there and we have a soft edge,
or to soften an edge which is already
dry we can come back with clear water and rub a little bit and then dry the
area with a tissue paper.
Now let's give a tone to the eagle also, just leaving
a few white feathers especially in the area near the tail.
We come back with the fountain pen and clarify some edges,
give a darker tone,
and much more detail.
I'm not trying to draw every feather but I do want to give an illusion of them,
a texture of them while giving also the right tone.
Okay good! now the figure.
I'll do some outline, which by the way, you don't necessarily need to
outline everything, you can leave some more mysterious edges or leave some
simply softer or inexistent or lost edges, which are up for the imagination.
Very good! ¡excelente!
Now we can start shading.
Let's do the face carefully,
some shading...
and the hair.
Very loosely.
I want the skin to have a lot more contrast so let's do that
with hatching and cross-hatching.
I'll shade her face and then her dress.
Let's delineate her legs and darken a little bit more.
I will just draw for a moment. I love drawing with pen and ink!
I hope this tutorial helps in getting you started with the right foot for "Ink-tober".
On this coming Tuesday we will see how the masters of the past drew
with pen and ink, so stick around.
We give it the last touches
the last details, and it´s ready!
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And I will see you on Tuesday ;)
subtitled by Grethel Trejo