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.
This started as some scribbling with Inktense pencils on large plain drawing paper. Then I was done, I wanted to wet the the drawing to release the "ink," but I found that the paper would not take water without drastic buckling. So, it remains a drawing rather than becoming a painting.
I have a little Moleskine (3.5 x 5.5) notebook that I only draw skulls in. I started in November of 2013 and I do one whenever the urge strikes me. It's not like a skull-a-day thing but sometimes I do get into a period where I will draw one every day for a while then I won't draw any for months. I even lost it for a while and was very sad. I think the longest gap between pages has been a year. This is the most recent skull, drawn on 05.28.2018. Most of them are posted on my Instagram but you have to scroll back a ways to get at the bulk of them.
Ink and Watercolor sketch of octopus. Normally I start with a pencil outline, then go over it with micron pens. But I'm learning to skip the pencil step and just sketch with ink. I helps you not to overthink things. Once you lay the ink line down on the paper it's there to stay. You can't erase and there isn't an undo like you have when working digitally. You just have to work around any "mistakes" you make. I'm also working on sketching faster because I just don't have that much free time these days. Trying to produce a new sketch every day is a real challenge.
"Man on the Train: Hey, are you a dreamer?
Wiley: Yeah.
Man on the Train: I haven’t seen too many around lately. Things have been tough lately for dreamers. They say dreaming is dead, no one does it anymore. It’s not dead it’s just that it’s been forgotten, removed from our language. Nobody teaches it so nobody knows it exists. The dreamer is banished to obscurity. Well, I’m trying to change all that, and I hope you are too. By dreaming, every day. Dreaming with our hands and dreaming with our minds. Our planet is facing the greatest problems it’s ever faced, ever. So whatever you do, don’t be bored, this is absolutely the most exciting time we could have possibly hoped to be alive. And things are just starting" - waking life (movie).
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So the other day I had a beautiful conversation about lucid dreaming with some friends. We shared amazing dream memories that we all had experienced and right the next day this sleeping beauty started showing up on a piece of paper.
What about you, are you a dreamer? :)
♠️
What startet as a somewhat mindless marker-sketch at a cafè while having a conversation later came out as a pretty cool cityscape. Probably inspired by the movie Tekkon Kinkreet, which I watched previously.
Used by witches to restore eyesight once their bodies start to decay from being far too old. The liquid is sipped from the shell of a tortoise and eyesight is restored for a period of 6 months. (I just made that up)
Many beginnings.
Beginning 6.
The best ice cream in the world is made from the clouds you gather at dusk on the beach. Everyone knows that.
* Starting is easy, it's the middle that is often a muddle. And I won't even mention the endings. Here are some beginnings for children stories that flitter through my head. https://www.instagram.com/p/COxp0KSh4KR/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Gourd-face started out as a tiny doodle in my sketchbook but I couldn't stop thinking about him. So I drew several gourd-faces. This one has the unfortunate circumstance of growing on his face. Poor Gourdy. I drew him with pencil and then colored on the computer. Cheers!
I’ve started to feed a couple of strays in my area. Some have clearly been on the streets their whole lives, look very unwell, and have not been spayed/neutered. I wish I could take them all in and get them over to see a vet.
Sketchbooking today, just moved and am unpacking.
A trippy forest that started as a pen doodle in Calculus class and is available as a print on products on Redbubble, Society6, Fine Art America, Zazzle, and Threadless. Try this link for easy access to all sites: https://linktr.ee/okhismakingart
This is a mashup of art styles. I'm not even sure how to describe it. Started with the main mushroom that is outlined and then went crazy around it. Also experimented with water reflections a bit.
A recent doodle of mine completed that was requested by my sister. This was done with Pigma Micron pens sizes ranging from 0.005 - 0.08. The main star of the show was my 0.01 pen. I loved the tiny detailing and shading my expanding my line giving it the realistic effect.
check out my instagram if you like it, I started painting less than a year ago and im self taught so im just sharing my progression to everyone along the way.
