Pen and Ink Art: Tips for Sketching and Drawing

Adjust your ink line work. With your first pass at inking complete, look for places where you line work can be touched up. Go over key lines a second and even third time to thicken and smooth them out. Use a thin nib the interchangeable tip of a dip pen and light ink for the initial outline and thicken lines later as you go. Give the ink a few minutes to dry before you start adding detail or going over lines a second time.

Pen and Ink Drawing - Materials and Techniques

Finish your drawing by inking small details and embellishments that give scope to its forms and lend an element of realism. Techniques like hatching drawing a series of thin parallel lines close together , crosshatching hatching in a grid-like pattern and stippling making closely-grouped small dots can help bring your drawing to life by making it more engaging to the eye.

These skills are a unique way of representing depth and texture in two dimensional art. If overdone, it can end up looking chaotic. Make use of tone, contrast and shadow.

Get started with ink drawing | Creative Bloq

Fill in around the edges of objects to provide contrast. Using various layers, thicknesses and shades of ink in different parts of the drawing will allow you to play with the way light is depicted. Ink is advantageous because it can be used to easily manipulate light and shadow, which will help round out the dimensions of the drawing.

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As a rule, the parts of an object that are furthest from a light source need to be shaded more to deepen shadows, whereas leaving an area unshaded will suggest brightness. Ink with the completed drawing in mind. Not every drawing will be inked the same way.

You can also start thinking about how you might enhance the drawing with detailing techniques. A drawing that you plan on coloring will not need too much interior detail, as it will get in the way. Develop your own style. Figure out which techniques you like most, and which feel best, for your particular art style.

Decide whether you prefer to grip the pen tightly or take a loose, free approach; learn how much pressure to put on the paper to make your lines look the way you want them to. Just as everyone draws a little differently, no two people will ink in exactly the same way, either. Your inking methods should closely match and complement your freehand drawing style. Use a pen or brush for different purposes.

Select an inking tool that will let you trace, fill, shade and employ other techniques as you please. Most artists prefer pens for conventional line work, as it goes on bold and straight. An inking brush might also be used, especially for filling large areas and when you want to taper the width of a line mid-stroke. The nib is the interchangeable tip of the pen that comes into contact with the paper and deploys ink. Find a suitable ink. Inks come in different shades and thickness, and some are better suited for certain drawing tasks than others.

For some projects, you might even use more than one type of ink on the same drawing. Choose a paper that will hold up to inking.

Cross Hatching Worksheets

Is it thick or thin? Ink will settle into different papers in a unique way. Get in the habit of thinking about paper and ink together. Mix and match your materials. Some artists prefer a simpler process, and may only ever use one type of each of these materials, but the combinations are nearly endless. The tools and mediums to you decide on will have an effect on the way your finished drawing turns out. Part of becoming a better artist is discovering what works best for your individual style.

Artists use all types of different pens for inking, from sophisticated dip pens with interchangeable nibs to basic ballpoint pens. Use what you have at your disposal and try a variety of different tools to see which work best for your style. Not Helpful 0 Helpful You can, but it depends on your art style.

Ink wash is like a hybrid inking and painting technique done with a brush instead of a pen. Value is controlled by your ink to water ratio — the more ink or less water, the greater your value. Start with your brush dipped liberally in ink so it collects on your paper. Re-dip your brush when needed, always keeping a puddle, and continue washing. Ink wash and watercolour techniques are similar. Pens on their last breath can deliver a very dry, almost brush-like stroke, which has a completely different look from other tools. Try it the next time your pen dies.

The unforgiving permanence of ink can stress some people out. So if launching straight into ink is too much pressure, try drawing your image in pencil first, then add ink over it.

Art should be fun. You can forget this when you worry too much about making mistakes or obsess over every line you draw and forget the joy of making art. Remember the bigger picture. Every journey every making is fraught with mistakes and missteps. Just remember that each line serves a greater whole and leads to your final image. If you make a mistake, chill out and move on — it might not even be noticeable in the end. When you begin you should set your paper at an angle to find a comfortable position for drawing. Change the angle of the paper and not your body position when applying further layers of cross hatching.

A comfortable and fixed drawing position is the key to consistent cross hatching. You can adjust the depth of tone and the roughness of texture by varying the density and distribution of the dots. In Van Gogh's 'View of Arles', stippling is used in a more expressive manner to suggest the natural texture of a wheat field.

With the exception of Pointillism - a style of painting where form is constructed from colored dots - stippling is seldom used as a technique on its own. It is nearly always combined with cross-hatching in order to enhance its effect. Download an A4 version of this worksheet. To illustrate different examples of stippling we have created a worksheet that displays a full range of techniques from rigid mechanical renderings to expressive freehand styles.

To assist you in developing your technique, we have devised a simple stippling worksheet to help you practice.

Cross Hatching and Stippling are the two basic techniques for the creation of tone and texture in an ink drawing. These are traditional techniques that have been used by artists for centuries. They can be applied in a tightly controlled manner, as in our drawing of Whitby above, or more freely and expressively as in the Van Gogh landscape below. In 'Harvest Landscape', Van Gogh intuitively combines hatching and stippling to create a bold expressive technique that naturally conveys the depth, texture and energy of its subject.

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The spontaneity and fluidity of his pen strokes say as much about the artist's personality as they do about the subject. It is the skill of an artist's technique, filtered though a personal vision of the subject, that determines the quality of an artwork. If we look at a close-up detail of our Whitby drawing, it should help to reveal how cross hatching and stippling are combined for a tonal and textural effect.

A range of cross hatching and stippling techniques have been used to give tone and texture to the walls and roofs. These techniques are not used independently from one another, but are combined to increase their effectiveness. After the brickwork and roof tile patterns had been sketched in, areas of tone were hatched and cross hatched over these to suggest depth and form.