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.
"English as She is Spoke" is a delightful example of incompetence and bad judgement. Jose da Fonseca and Pedro Carolina set out to write a Portuguese-English phrasebook. The only problem was that they didn't speak any English. They did know some French and armed with French-English phrasebook, dictionaries and enthusiasm they brought forth this book. Mark Twain was an early admirer of this book. "Nobody can add to the absurdity of this book, nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect, it must and will stand alone: its immortality is secure."
Progression 4 of 6. Here the drawing starts to come together. I built on the layers I put down in the earlier portions of the drawing. Spent some time on the beard and mouth.
Romping through the woods, I happened upon a faerie ring of Slenderman and his acolyte children. I stepped back slowly. I didn't want crunching branches to give me away.
First I should tell you where worries come from.
They come from the back of a Hornswagglers thumb.
These Hornswagglers live very deep,
down beneath Gritchuk Falls,
a town far below the earths core in its halls.
The falls that are flowing there a
