Remember school years Well, who hasn’t sinned by sketching something arbitrary on the back page of a notebook during a boring lesson. And if you had artistic abilities, this activity was captivating and was expressed in sketches of reality, caricatures and caricatures of your friends or teachers, funny pictures and so on. Funny, but nothing more.

If we turn to classical drawing methods, then a ballpoint pen has never been considered a tool for creating drawings. And as it turned out, it was in vain. Contemporary artists who freed their consciousness from stereotypes, using ballpoint pens, achieve amazing effects. The pictures come out rich in color, volume, living texture. Some of them resemble photographs when executed, others are similar to computer graphics highest quality, there are also those that look like an engraving.

Of course, to get such images you need to have talent and skills in working with a ballpoint pen. But you always need to start somewhere and try. Moreover, ballpoint pens in modern office supplies have acquired many new properties, you can choose pens with different thicknesses of the drawn line, various color shades have appeared in a fairly rich palette, the quality of the ballpoints in the refills allows you to draw without blots and unmarked areas.

To draw, you need to choose a good ballpoint pen that will not stain, that is, will release ink evenly from the refill. If the desired drawing should consist of lines of equal brightness and almost indistinguishable width, then use a gel pen. If you need halftones and the ability to vary the color intensity, then it is better to choose a ballpoint pen with regular ink.

When using a self-writing pen (that’s what a ballpoint pen was called when it was first invented) for drawing, keep in mind that ink consumption will be more intense than when writing, which means you need to prepare extra pens. One painting can use 3 to 4 standard ink refills.

And most importantly. An ink pen, unlike a pencil, does not allow mistakes; all strokes, lines and dots must be applied confidently and accurately, because the ink on the paper remains forever and cannot be corrected.

In addition, when using a ballpoint pen for drawing, you need to be extremely careful: the ink does not dry immediately, so accidentally pressing your palm or finger into fresh lines can easily smear them or leave your mark. Not such a simple technology as it seemed in school lessons.

Now let's look at the masterpieces produced by masters who are fluent in this technique.

English artist Andrea Joseph paints directly on notebook sheets, which is very reminiscent school creativity and sketches for cartoons or children's books.

Lucas Salgado from the Argentine city of Santa Fe draws his girls with a ballpoint pen without any special art education. This is what talent means, which can manifest itself even from simple ink lines.

Samuel Silva, a lawyer from Portugal, draws colorful ballon pictures of incredible realism and vividness that reflect not only all the shades of nature, light and shadow, the entire universe, but also all shades of emotion, volume and shape as if they were bright, accurate color photographs.

Abadidabou Sarah Esteje, a French artist who is a designer by profession and enjoys photography, creates stunningly realistic animal pictures using a blue ballpoint pen. Portraits also appeared among her works.

Juan Francisco Casas Ruiz spanish artist Born in La Carolina, Juan has a professional art education. One day he took an ordinary blue ballpoint pen and sketched a comic portrait in ink. This activity fascinated the young Spaniard so much that he created dozens of sketches of people in shades of blue ink, which in terms of the accuracy of their depiction of nature cannot be distinguished from photographs. Among these sketches there are many sensual and even erotic images of girls who happily become models for the original artist.

Chinese artist Zhuge Qingjia also draws only with a ballpoint pen, carefully drawing even the smallest details.

Tim Jeffs, a remarkable animal artist from the United States of America, depicts portraits of animals on paper, painted in the finest detail, and uses a ballpoint pen and black ink.

Extraordinary creativity, which can be classified as graphic realism, has enough followers and admirers and cannot but attract attention.

Drawing techniques Zentangle, Doodling and Zendoodling.

Let's get acquainted with drawing techniques like Zentangle, Doodling and Zendoodling

I really liked the drawing technique; it is especially good (in my opinion) for those creative people who want to express themselves in drawing, but do not have classical skills.

Here, to achieve success, you need a lot of imagination and creativity and a minimum of drawing techniques, although spatial imagination will still be useful to us. The pictures are unusual and exciting; you can look at them and study them for a long time.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find information about these techniques in Russian, so I translated it from English sources (don’t judge my translation too harshly).

Zentangle is a small piece of art made with a fine point pen and graphite to highlight light and shadow. It is compiled in a certain order. Take a square of watercolor paper and use a pencil to place 4 dots in each corner about half an inch from the border of the paper. Connect these points with a pencil border, which can be either smooth or curved (irregular). Inside the resulting frame, “lines” are drawn with a pencil, the so-called crazy lines. This divides the drawing area into sectors of different sizes and specific profiles. Take a fine fountain pen and fill the shape with a variety of repeating patterns. Once you've filled in the gaps, the pencil lines are erased and then shading is added to give the Zentangle its shape.

If your drawing doesn't follow these guidelines, then it's not a Zentangle. Zentangle is an abstract design and can be viewed from any angle. If it has a recognizable image, such as a face or eyes or an animal, it is not Zentangle. However, it may well be stylized Zentangle or ZIA.

Doodle (translated as scribble) is a focused drawing made while a person's attention is occupied with something else. Doodles - simple drawings, which may have concrete representational meanings or may simply be abstract forms.

Stereotypical examples of drawing are found in school notebooks, often in the margins, made by students when they are daydreaming or losing interest during class. Other common examples of painting done over long periods of time telephone conversations, if you have a pen and paper at hand.

Popular types include cartoon versions, images of teachers or schoolmates, famous television or comic characters, fictional creatures, landscapes, geometric shapes and patterns, textures, banners with legends and animation scenes made in sequence on various pages of a book or laptop.

Zendoodling is a hybrid of Zentangle art with Doodling. Zendoodles often free form and has an abstract look sometimes with splashes of color.

It is not strictly called Zentangling because it does not use the "line" method, nor does it require black and white execution.
Zendoodles are created using black ink on any type of colored background, not necessarily white paper. The use of watercolors, pencils, chalk, markers, etc. is also allowed. at your discretion.

It was in the search for pens for drawing that I made many discoveries. Firstly, the same pens can have completely different names in different stores and books. Secondly, there are an innumerable variety of pens, liners, markers and other drawing tools, and each type has its own characteristics. And thirdly, all this goodness is almost impossible to find in Minsk, and what you can find is many times more expensive than in other countries (even Russia and Lithuania)...

In my material, I will use the names that I ultimately came up with, and at the same time I will illustrate each tool with a photograph - so that you know what to look for (in fact, this is how I buy pens myself :))

Ballpoint pens. Of course, you can draw with them, but they are more good for doodling (see). Since the ink is distributed unevenly due to the ball, even a solid line with constant pressure can be too pale in different areas, or vice versa with excess ink (and it smears! Yes, it is ballpoint pens that usually smudge the most).

One of the possible uses of ballpoint pens with bright colors is to decorate an already finished black and white drawing color. By the way, “poisonous” (sometimes called neon) colors also work great on black/dark paper. I haven’t seen anything like this in Minsk yet, but I have experience buying from the Chinese. Apparently, such pens can be bought in neighboring countries - in particular in Russia.

Gel pens. They also suffer a little, like ball ones, from the inconstancy of the line, but:

• They make best pens with white, silver and gold ink for drawing on black/craft, colored paper;
• They are sold even in Minsk, although the Chinese have more choice;
• They are very cheap.

Markers. Why not? For example, I just robbed a child of several colored markers and I even liked it. Felt-tip pens, of course, have their own characteristics: for example, if you pass them over the same place twice, the color changes noticeably, the paper becomes too saturated with paint, and some even “pillow” or get very wet. Therefore, it seems to me that felt-tip pens are good for drawing either on thick, smooth paper, or when your movements are already adjusted and confident.

By the way, double-sided markers are convenient:

Liners(in stores they are simply called pens, capillary, gel and God knows what else). An alternative name for these pens is liners: different artists call them differently. Liners are the most convenient and common tool for drawing, as they solve the problem of paint uniformity. Today they are produced in a variety of types.

What is a drawing liner? How to determine if it is a liner? For the skirt - like this:

Liners may differ in thickness: as a rule, it is indicated by a number characterizing the thickness in millimeters. For example, here in the photo there are 0.7, 0.5 and 0.05:

It’s up to you to decide what thickness you need. But practice shows that initial stage It's easier to learn to draw with thick liners. Thin ones are more suitable for small elements inside a large picture.

There are liners different colors. At the same time, as a rule, only black and brown liners are made of different thicknesses. Colored liners are usually equally thin. Well, or I didn’t come across any others :) In Minsk you can find them even in ordinary stationery stores, but I usually found a very poor selection.

Colored liners can be used for:

• Coloring other people's mandalas (I haven't said yet that the most popular on Amazon last year with great triumph was anti-stress coloring book for adults— and it was made using the techniques I’m talking about?!);
• Coloring your black and white drawings;
• Drawings of colored mandalas and other elements.

Unfortunately, such liners are more suitable for drawing/coloring on white paper. For a dark base, they lack saturation and brightness (and for such cases there are other options;) Just about them next time).

Brown liners. I call them craft for myself - because their color is very similar to craft paper. They also come in different thicknesses, just like black ones. And from some manufacturers you can even find a brush liner! True, I haven’t mastered it yet - it was just included in the kit :))

By the way, in nature there are also hybrids, double-sided liners: for example, a tool that has a felt-tip pen on one side and a liner on the other. The good thing about such tools is that you have the same color in both cases. This is convenient when you use a thick line in the main drawing, and draw the details with a thinner one.

We are used to drawing in black and white... Perhaps this is why white drawing on black or colored paper looks especially impressive: breaking patterns and impressing. Although the same drawing, in black and white, will not seem as striking.

I fell in love with painting with white paints on a black background as a child. And thus she “hacked” a couple of drawing competitions - this decision was so unexpected for the audience. And now - when I got carried away - I prefer unusual combinations when choosing colors :)

Mandala gold on black:

Doodling silver on red

Zentangle white and black on orange:

But the most impressive thing still remains white on a black background - regardless of whether you draw mandalas, zentangles or are just learning:

Today I have 4 white pens in my “arsenal”. They are different and appearance, and a line that can be left on paper. This:


In Minsk you can more or less easily buy Crown Hi-Jell Roller is a familiar gel pen, but with white ink.

Handles production Sakura are rightfully considered one of (if not the) best white pens for drawing on black paper. Masters all over the world, from the USA to New Zealand, draw mandalas and zentangles with their pens. For some time now, Sakura pens can be found in Belarusian stores. And once upon a time Gelly Roll I brought from Ukraine and Russia, Decorese They actually sent it to me from the USA...

Uni-Ball They are famous for their wide range of pens and liners, but I haven’t seen them in Belarus either. But with some luck, you can find them on AliExpress (if it’s difficult to bring from other countries).

Crown and Gelly Roll have a thinner line (meaning you can draw more graceful mandalas or zentangles):
But thanks to the thickness of the line, Uni-Ball and Decorese produce a more saturated and bright color. There is no need, for example, to draw a pen twice along the same line. Moreover, you can draw with them almost anywhere. For example, on stones:

Now you have a better understanding of white pens for drawing on black paper, which means you can already navigate a little in the range of these products yourself. Of course, there is much more choice on the same AliExpress: a simple search reveals dozens of types of white gel pens for drawing, in different price categories, individually or in sets. Choose, order - and draw!

If you have questions, feel free to ask in the comments or send by email.

If you are interested in what I am drawing with all this, you can look in my Instagram @bygirl, and if you want to quickly learn yourself, I collect pictures on Pinterest, and on Youtube videos with lessons and examples.

Anyone can learn to draw with a pen. Whether a student or a pensioner. Everyone once drew in the margins of notebooks. Some did well, some not so much. Some drew strange images, some skulls, and some little fairies, cuties from manga. And we all enjoyed it.

What do you need to start drawing? Of course, desire and patience. Without these qualities, it will be difficult to learn anything in principle.

For any drawing, including with a pen, you need to become familiar with the basics of composition and the basics of drawing. For starters, you can just read it. Drawing theory has never been superfluous, and it is advisable to refresh your memory from time to time. I recently came across a book

If you compare a pen (liner, rapidograph) or a pencil, these are quite different tools. With a pencil we can achieve airiness in a drawing, learn how to draw correctly on a sheet of paper (you can always use an eraser) and draw realistic portraits.

A pen, unlike a pencil, disciplines. If you draw it, then you draw it. But this does not mean at all that the pen fewer options maneuver. There are completely different techniques here.

Selecting a tool (handle).

Let's start by choosing a tool (drawing pen). After all, to draw well, you must have a convenient tool, so that, first of all, you like it.

1. The best one to draw is the one that doesn’t drip, always writes, and draws without obvious effort. It is easy and convenient to draw with this pen.

If you choose between ballpoint and gel pen, then it’s better to choose the second one. I have been drawing with a gel pen for a long time. Most of my drawings before 2012 were drawn by her.

There are several tricks to vary the thickness of the gel pen line. If the drawing is placed on a stack of paper, the lines will be thicker. And if you put the sheet on glass or a bare table, the lines will be thinner.

2. Another option is liner or rapidograph. If a gel pen may not write over a pencil or for some reason does not want to work on the edges of the sheet, then a liner writes always and everywhere. practically does not get dirty, lays down softly, without unnecessary effort. Of course, it costs 4 times more than a pen and is not always needed. But if you still decide to buy, then it is better to take liners from Uni and Sakura. Liners have different thicknesses.

My preferences for tool thickness are:

a) the main drawing will be convenient to draw with a 0.3 mm liner;

b) objects in the background - 0.1 mm;

c) and if you decide to “bring it black,” then 0.8 mm will do.

3. The third option is . Many foreign illustrators work with such pens, such as Matthias Adolfson and. I use a hero 901 fountain pen for sketching and continue to use a gel pen for graphics.

Paper

Any paper will do. You can get a notebook with thick sheets so that you can draw on both sides. I have several types of notebooks. This is a watercolor notebook on a spring, moleskin, ordinary sheets for a printer, fastened with a metal spring, and which I sewed with my own hands. What's convenient about a notebook is that it's always at hand. Just don't take notebooks with textured paper. The texture is more suitable for watercolors. And for a full-fledged drawing, a regular A4 or A3 sheet, as well as any smooth thick paper, is suitable.

In 2017 I painted fountain pen on textured paper. The result was also pleasing, but it was still better on a smooth one.

Drawing process

1. Usually, when drawing with a pen, I don't sketch with a pencil. There are exceptions when you need to draw complex architectural buildings such as a city, streets, interiors and other complex objects. Everything that should correspond to reality.

To make outlines for the future drawing and avoid the fact that the drawing will ultimately not fit on the sheet, you can use dots. If we draw thin lines with a pencil, then with a pen we can put dots. And if you tint the drawing, the dots will merge with the main landscape and will not be conspicuous. But, of course, you can make a sketch in pencil, no one forbids it.

2. The drawing process itself should be fast. Draw lines quickly and confidently, even if the drawing turns out to be crooked. Curved drawings can be very lively and interesting. In any case, you need to get your hand used to the instrument. Don't stay in one place for too long.

Prepare plenty of paper and make one sketch after another. Always finish a drawing, even if you don't like it. In the end it can turn out very interesting.

3. What to draw? Draw everything you see. Start with ordinary objects, a lamp, a teapot, a mug, a computer, a cat, a dog, a chimpanzee. You can also draw while sitting at home. Exit to fresh air and drawing there would also be a good idea. Make your drawings more complex over time. Draw still lifes, interiors, streets, people. Let your notebook always be with you. The main thing is practice and more practice.

4. Don't evaluate yourself after each drawing. Turn off your inner critic. One drawing doesn't mean anything. Build up more luggage. At first everything will turn out clumsy and ugly. As our drawing teacher said: “quantity will smoothly develop into quality.” Patience and perseverance will help us here.

Southern Bay of Sevastopol. Series of sketches

Toning

1. Toning can be different. You can make a drawing in black and white (without gray tones).

2. Can be done with intersecting lines. The lines are superimposed one on one, changing direction. This tinting option will give you many shades of gray.

, Just . All crookedness will be immediately visible.

It all seems very complicated, but at the same time so simple. If you put enough effort into it every day, everything will work out.