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.
Recent commission: How do women move forward when doors are continually closing in front of them? Doors that were open in the past are now being closed by those who think that you should live your life the way they do even though your life situation is vastly different from theirs. 2022, 13” x 19” Ballpoint Pen on Paper, Digital. Model: AmyM
Pen drawing of the gate into St Cedmas Church in Larne, Northern Ireland. I got married in the church in 2004. My wife’s parents were married here too in the 1960s.
2023, Ballpoint pen on 5” x 8” acid free Moleskine sketchbook paper, Adobe Photoshop. First sketchbook drawing of 2024! Based on a photo of a model in a makeup company advert.
