Hi, I'm artist Lillian Gray and today we're going to do
quite an exciting medium. It's a little bit unconventional. It's a ballpoint pen.
Today I am using a Bic pen. It's always been my favourite. Since I've been a girl at school
I used to doodle all the time in my school books and I always used to draw these. You get them in
black and blue and there are various other colours. Today I'm going to use blue so
people immediately recognize that it's ballpoint pen that I've used. Often when I've used black,
people tend to think it's fine liner, or I cheated somehow or printed it or whatever, but with blue
they just don't question it and they just go "Wow it's ballpoint pen" That's what i'm going to use.
I got a set of three. They're really, really cheap and affordable,
so you can do this anytime and anywhere. I am using just plain card stock paper.
It's a bit thicker than printing paper but it's just a cheap old paper. The most important thing,
it has no grain, it's got no bumpy surface, it's got no funky texture. It's just cheap,
plain printing paper, smooth as a baby's bottom.
I have a drawing board underneath which is just a piece of masonite that I've cut just so
I don't pick up any texture from the table and if you don't have a drawing board you can just use
newspaper that you folded, just so you don't pick up the texture of the table, especially if you're
working on a wooden table. You don't want that grain in your drawing. So let's get going.
There are various techniques that you can use when working with a ballpoint pen. Some of the most
common ones are parallel hatching, which are fine lines that are parallel to each other,
Cross-hatching, that's when we criss-cross lines over each other at various degrees
and angles. Basket weave, which is a staggering of short lines grouped together.
Contour hatching which follows the form of the object.
Stippling, which consists out of a lot of tiny little dots grouped together.
And then there's the basic gradient going from dark to light.
I would encourage you to do some medium exploration before you start.
Medium exploration is when you play around with a specific medium such as watercolour,
oil paints, pen or pencils, exploring various mark-making techniques.
Step one is to plan properly. I always tell my students "Great art takes planning". So
what I kind of thought of doing, and this is not a very original idea,
because I've seen it a lot on Pinterest. It's where they've got animals engaging
with the actual pen in the drawing. That's what I also would like to do. As artists and designers,
we often draw a few quick scams. Scamps are small thumbnail sketches that help you plan
your artwork. When creating your scamps, consider the principles of design such as composition. What
will the balance of this artwork be? How would you like to crop it? Where would you like to place it?
Step 2 is to find a good resource.
I have gone on to Unsplash which is a website that has got
images for artists that are not copyrighted. It means you can sell this artwork afterwards.
You're allowed to use it in your artwork and all they ask is that you link back to Unsplash. I've
got the link down below where I got my resources if you want to draw the exact same thing.
When selecting a photo to work with make sure it has a good value range
where there are beautiful dark areas and beautiful highlights,
and you can see all the details in between. I would recommend converting your reference
to black and white. This really helps you to discern the various values.
Step 3, let's draw the basic shapes.
For step 3 we need to simplify our reference into basic shapes
There are five basic shapes: a triangle. circle, square, oval, and rectangle.
As artists, we use these to make drawings super easy.
Here you can see how I have simplified my elephant into basic shapes.
Once you have drawn your basic shapes, it is really important to double-check your proportions.
Look at your negative space, your positive space.
Make sure your basic shapes are the correct size in relation to each other. There's no
use starting to draw in pen that you cannot erase. if your pencil lines aren't 100 % correct.
The drawing is the foundation of your artwork and you want to build on a solid foundation.
The first thing I'm going to do is to draw my elephant onto my paper.
There are various ways all of you can transfer the image onto your drawing. If you're not good
at drawing and getting the proportions 100 % correct, so you can transfer. A way to transfer
is to take a 6b pencil or a very dark pencil, you scratch at the back of your page
you flip it around, you trace and the image will be transferred onto your paper.
I'm not going to do that because I want the elephant to be a little bit bigger.
I am working flat today and without an easel. Has any of you wondered why?
If you work on an easel your pen runs dry quite quickly. So you actually want to draw flat.
Remember when we draw flat we tend to run a much higher risk to draw out of proportion,
because our eye first sees this section, then the middle section,
then the last section and when we tilt it up everything is out of proportion. So go ahead
just tilt up your drawing. Make sure your negative space is correct, your positive space is correct,
and your proportions are 100 % what you wanted them to be before you move on to your pen.
Looks good!
Step four: Let's do the outline in pen.
I've started making my outlines and just committing to where all my outlines are for my
elephant.
Once you've done your outlines you can really now
take your eraser and actually start erasing the lines you no longer need.
When removing the fuzziness of my eraser I tend to use a paper towel.
I don't want to get the oil from my hands onto the paper. You don't want
last night's Mcdonald's or pizza on your drawing. I'm just gonna brush this away.
I am also just going to keep this paper towel here to put underneath my hand when I'm drawing. The
reason is, if my hand gets sweaty or my hand cream or maybe the hand sanitizer that's on my hand
goes off into my page the paper towel will catch it and absorb it, it won't go onto my drawing.
Once I finish my basic outline, I am now applying line quality. Line quality is when we make our
lines visually interesting by adding thick areas, thin areas, dark areas, light areas. So I'm really
considering what my outline should look like and not just leaving it a boring plain line.
Step five: Let's add the texture to our elephant.
Art is a visual language. If you draw a flower people
in Japan will know that it's a flower, people in Mexico will know that it's a flower,
people in America will know that it's a flower. We all speak the language of art. So as artists
you need to communicate with whatever is in your hand, whether it's a brush, a pen, or a pencil.
You need to tell the viewer how the surface feels. As artists, we create the illusion of
texture when working on a 2D surface. So let's analyze the reference of our elephant to see
if we could spot various textures. The tusks are smoother than the rough coarse skin on the trunk,
and even though the ear is also covered in the elephant's skin, the ear is much smoother than
the skin on the trunk. The eyes are a completely different texture so I am going to assign
a different mark-making technique for all these different textures. For the tusk I
am using parallel hatching for the coarse skin on the trunk, cross-hatching.
For the ear, I will switch back to parallel hatching but using
long smooth lines instead of the short lines on the tusks.
I'm also combining that with contour hatching
here and there, follow the folds in the flaps of the ears.
For the ear, I'm switching back to parallel hatching but using
long smooth lines instead of the short lines on the tusk.
If you ever feel overwhelmed by your reference, getting lost in all the little
details, fold it or create a viewfinder. If you are working on your cell phone,
simply zoom in to only view one section at a time. This helps your mind to stop panicking, calm
down and only focus on one section at a time. Remember you can swivel your page.
Always work with the natural curve in your hand and not against it.
Step 6: We now need to add actual pen into our drawing. First, take a photo with flat consistent
lighting of your drawing. Download a product shot of the pen you used.
Now we need to combine these two. I am using photoshop since that is the
software I'm most comfortable with and have on my laptop. If you do not have photoshop,
don't panic. There are great cell phone apps available that work really well. At our art
school our teens use the app called Graphionica to create digital collages. It's easy to work with.
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I'm artist Lillian Gray and stay tuned for our next amazing art project.