Drawings: Pencil and Ink

When attempting to draw a complicated shape such as a human figure, it is helpful at first to represent the form with a set of primitive volumes. Almost any form can be represented by some combination of the cube, sphere, cylinder, and cone. Once these basic volumes have been assembled into a likeness, then the drawing can be refined into a more accurate and polished form.

The lines of the primitive volumes are removed and replaced by the final likeness. Drawing the underlying construction is a fundamental skill for representational art, and is taught in many books and schools. Its correct application resolves most uncertainties about smaller details, and makes the final image look consistent. A more refined art of figure drawing relies upon the artist possessing a deep understanding of anatomy and the human proportions. A trained artist is familiar with the skeleton structure, joint location, muscle placement, tendon movement, and how the different parts work together during movement.

This allows the artist to render more natural poses that do not appear artificially stiff. The artist is also familiar with how the proportions vary depending on the age of the subject, particularly when drawing a portrait.

Linear perspective is a method of portraying objects on a flat surface so that the dimensions shrink with distance. Each set of parallel, straight edges of any object, whether a building or a table, follows lines that eventually converge at a vanishing point. Typically this convergence point is somewhere along the horizon, as buildings are built level with the flat surface.

Cross Hatching Worksheets

When multiple structures are aligned with each other, such as buildings along a street, the horizontal tops and bottoms of the structures typically converge at a vanishing point. When both the fronts and sides of a building are drawn, then the parallel lines forming a side converge at a second point along the horizon which may be off the drawing paper. This is a two-point perspective. Depth can also be portrayed by several techniques in addition to the perspective approach above.

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Objects of similar size should appear ever smaller the further they are from the viewer. Thus the back wheel of a cart appears slightly smaller than the front wheel.

Pen drawing

Depth can be portrayed through the use of texture. As the texture of an object gets further away it becomes more compressed and busy, taking on an entirely different character than if it was close. Depth can also be portrayed by reducing the contrast in more distant objects, and by making their colors less saturated. This reproduces the effect of atmospheric haze, and cause the eye to focus primarily on objects drawn in the foreground.

The composition of the image is an important element in producing an interesting work of artistic merit. The artist plans element placement in the art to communicate ideas and feelings with the viewer. The composition can determine the focus of the art, and result in a harmonious whole that is aesthetically appealing and stimulating.

The illumination of the subject is also a key element in creating an artistic piece, and the interplay of light and shadow is a valuable method in the artist's toolbox. The placement of the light sources can make a considerable difference in the type of message that is being presented. Multiple light sources can wash out any wrinkles in a person's face, for instance, and give a more youthful appearance.

In contrast, a single light source, such as harsh daylight, can serve to highlight any texture or interesting features. When drawing an object or figure, the skilled artist pays attention to both the area within the silhouette and what lies outside. The exterior is termed the negative space , and can be as important in the representation as the figure. Objects placed in the background of the figure should appear properly placed wherever they can be viewed.

A study is a draft drawing that is made in preparation for a planned final image. Studies can be used to determine the appearances of specific parts of the completed image, or for experimenting with the best approach for accomplishing the end goal. However a well-crafted study can be a piece of art in its own right, and many hours of careful work can go into completing a study.

Individuals display differences in their ability to produce visually accurate drawings. Investigative studies have aimed to explain the reasons why some individuals draw better than others. One study posited four key abilities in the drawing process: Motor control is an important physical component in the 'Production Phase' of the drawing process. It has been suggested that an individual's ability to perceive an object they are drawing is the most important stage in the drawing process.

Furthermore, the influential artist and art critic John Ruskin emphasised the importance of perception in the drawing process in his book The Elements of Drawing. This has also been shown to influence one's ability to create visually accurate drawings. Short-term memory plays an important part in drawing as one's gaze shifts between the object they are drawing and the drawing itself.

Some studies comparing artists to non-artists have found that artists spend more time thinking strategically while drawing. In particular, artists spend more time on 'metacognitive' activities such as considering different hypothetical plans for how they might progress with a drawing. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For other uses, see Drawing disambiguation.

Retrieved 2 April Retrieved 1 January Topics in Cognitive Science. F; Duff, L; Davies, J The Painter at Work. An exploration of the cognitive and neuroscientific foundations of representational drawing". Drawing — The Process. Classic Essays on Photography. How Jean-Michel Basquiat taught me to forget about technique".

The Artist's Handbook of Materials and Techniques. Drawing with Pen and Ink.

Step 1: Start with a pencil sketch

Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters 45th Anniversary ed. A brown ink popular with the old masters because of its warm, luminous colour qualities was known as bistre.

It was prepared by boiling wood soot to obtain a liquid, transparent brown extract. The third important ink was an iron gall, or chemical, ink. Its principal ingredients were iron sulfate, the extract of gall nuts, and a gum arabic solution. It was, in fact, the common writing ink for centuries and was employed for most early drawings. Its colour when first applied to the paper is bluish black, but it rapidly turns blackish and, over the years, a dull brown and tends to disintegrate. Pens are the oldest and most popular of all the drawing media of the Western artist, in part because of the variety of linear effects provided by the three basic types of pens and their adaptability to the changing styles of draftsmanship over many centuries.

These three basic types are quill pens, cut from the wing feathers of fowls and birds; reed pens , formed and trimmed from stems of bamboolike grasses; and metal pens, fabricated from various metals, especially fine steel. The outstanding master of the reed pen, the Dutch artist Rembrandt , used it often in combination with the quill pen and washes to produce the richly suggestive atmospheric illusionism of his works. The reed pen never had the widespread popularity of quill or metal pens, but for special effects it has served artists admirably; for example, the 19th-century Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh in his last years used it in his drawings to produce the blunt, powerful strokes that were counterparts of the heavy brush strokes typical of many of his canvases.

Until the acceptance of the modern steel pen, most Western master draftsmen used quill pens. During the Middle Ages the quill pen was used for the fine delineations of images in manuscripts; its nibs, which can be sharpened to extreme fineness, permit the craftsman to create small linear figures or ornamental decorations on the pages or along the borders of the parchment leaves. This characteristic, combined with the flexibility of the quill point, which responds to pressure for varying the widths of lines or forming accents, made it adaptable to the diverse personal styles of draftsmen from the 15th to the end of the 19th century.

Nevertheless, artists only reluctantly adopted the steel pen, and most drawings in pen and ink done before the 20th century were still produced with quills. The steel pen is now used for drawing almost exclusively and is available in many shapes, sizes, and degrees of stiffness or flexibility. It has become standard studio equipment of the illustrator, cartoonist, and designer. Pen drawings by such outstanding painters and sculptors as Pablo Picasso , Henri Matisse , and Henry Moore demonstrate the virtue of the steel pen in producing the sharp linear definitions generally preferred by modern masters.

We welcome suggested improvements to any of our articles. You can make it easier for us to review and, hopefully, publish your contribution by keeping a few points in mind. Your contribution may be further edited by our staff, and its publication is subject to our final approval.

Pen and Ink Drawings: History, Types

Unfortunately, our editorial approach may not be able to accommodate all contributions. Without the guidance of a pencil line, you could get into some difficulty when inking these small, complicated areas.

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• Pen and Ink Drawing - Materials and Techniques.

Some of the walls in our drawing have been patterned with brickwork, while others have been stippled with dots to suggest a pebble dash texture. A few have been left plain to evoke a stucco finish. The bushes have also been stippled in graduated tones to convey their texture and form.

Pen and Ink Drawing - Materials and Techniques

Slates that are too small to draw individually have been suggested by hatched lines. We mentioned on the previous page, when talking about shapes and colors, that a landscape drawing or painting does not have to be an identical copy of what the artist can see, but that it may have some of its elements adjusted to create a better composition. The same applies to patterns and textures. You can change, simplify or enhance these for creative effect. The technique of cross-hatching is used to apply tone to those parts of the buildings that are in shade. Cross-hatching begins to establish the overall form of the image.

The shade of a tone can be increased or reduced depending on the number of hatched layers applied: It is advisable to build up the tones gradually across the entire image rather than completing the drawing in small sections. This way you are more able to achieve an overall tonal unity throughout the composition. Once you have established the basic areas of dark and light, you can start to unify the overall tone of the drawing by fine tuning your cross-hatching and stippling.

You may need to intensify the hatching and stippling of certain areas in order to balance the different depths of shade throughout the composition. After some further tinkering with the tones and textures across the image, the ink drawing is finally completed by darkening the windows. This adds to the solidity of the buildings by suggesting their interior depth.

The windows in a drawing of a building are nearly always dark. The one time they can appear bright is at night when they are illuminated from within. The objective in balancing the elements of this or any other drawing is to ensure that all the lines, shapes, tones, textures and patterns work together in harmony, with each element contributing its strengths to the overall composition, without overpowering the qualities of the others. Once you have finished your ink drawing, you may be pleased with the result and be happy to leave it as it is.