My favorite way to eliminate the often paralyzing fear of "ruining" "good" paper is to just paint on any and all junk mail that comes into my house. Higher end catalogs are great for this, they don't use slick, thin paper (and even that gets used in collage or as a desk cover for other projects) and they're already bound for you. Just add marks! Carry it with you. Scan the pages you like. Cut it up later for making other art. It's "just" junk mail, so there is literally no pressure. I have HUNDREDS of these type of things and I run across them all the time, forgotten, in some old backpack or purse or drawer and it's a treasure to look through them again, and add new marks, paints and words.
I’m often asked about my Bic pen drawings and how I do them. It starts with a good foundational drawing, the ballpoint pen part is just trying to colour within the lines. I try to do my best to explain the process, but the best way to show my progress is by posting my efforts to master pen drawings over the span of 3 or so years. I have been doodling/drawing with ballpoint pens as far back as I can remember - they were cheap, readily available and always lying around the house. It wasn’t until I was bored during a particularly long team meeting-conference call (around 2016-17) that I started to think about the possibilities of ballpoint pens as serious portrait illustration tools. My first experiments with full colour ink portrait drawings were rather crude, but that’s the point of learning new techniques—as long as the curiosity and the love of drawing is there, you can transfer that skill and passion into any medium. Remember, the most exquisite drawings and paintings you see didn’t materialise fully formed, they started out as failed experiments. Failure after failure after failure. It’s important to remember this when you get discouraged (I've failed spectacularly over the years). The only difference between the accomplished artist and the beginner is hundreds of hours of practice. Talent can only get you so far. It’s the hard work that you do behind the scenes that makes your work look effortless. Keep doodling. Keep learning. Stay curious.
I've been using this dot-grid notebook (which I originally I got with the intention of using as a planner - Thanks, 'Rona) to make random watercolor pages with my doodles. I can do this in a few minutes here and there to break up some monotony and build up a book full of just them.
Folktale Week Day1: Home. This is a folktale about the ghost of a woman who lived at Heceta Head Lighthouse Her baby died when she fell off the cliff outside their home. Tragic!
This comic came out of a conversation I’m having with a friend. We both found it fascinating that so many comedians and creatives come from broken and dark places. Robin Williams said, “I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it’s like to feel absolutely worthless and they don’t want anyone else to feel like that.”
This is my first attempt at doodling some trees and it most certainly was not an easy task. I hope as I practice that I will be able to draw more detail and a variety of trees. Special thanks to Jean Garro (@Gentoo201) for the inspiration with her awesome drawings! ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ♥♥ Thanks girl!
Still playing with ballpoint pens. This time, I tried a “scribble” drawing, holding the pen way back on the shaft and making little circles and scribbles….then layering them over and over. It was actually very liberating and fun. I did this on a Canson sketch paper….which didn’t wear through, but did buckle a little towards the end.
Definitely doodling---This is my first mandela and it ranged from great fun to great frustration. It ended up a little "waby swaby," but I suppose that's in keeping. It's 12 inches across with 32 points. Drawn with a micron pen, then colored in markers (in whatever colors I happened to have) and has colored pencil shadows. I scanned it into PhotoShop and played with altering colors. Made a green one for my green-crazy friend and a subdued desaturated one for myself. It's quite printable on my oversized color laser printer---so ill be a fun "social distancing" poster gift for my friends. Each one with a personal color range.