Red Head - Ballpoint Pen
Art by @Ilga
My first ballpoint pen person. This was a lot more time consuming than I expected, but I'm glad I hung in there and finally finished it. The reference for the drawing was a Getty Image.
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15 Comments
Arthur Koestler (@arthurkoestler)
This is gorgeous! Her hair is on fire. Love all the deep reds.
Ilga Jansons (@Ilga)
@arthurkoestler Thank you. She intrigued me as a subject with that very direct stare and that little fiery flare!
Joer_B (@JoerB)
Glad you persevered with the drawing. There are times when the subject's personality is what draws you in, and this is reflected in your drawing. Well done!
Ilga Jansons (@Ilga)
@JoerB Thanks. I have you to thank for my entrance into the world of ball point pens. Though I had scribbled with them when nothing else was at hand, this is the first time I have tried to actually USE them. I have had a lot of trouble with "blotching." Don't know if it's a factor of age of the pens or the manufacturer. You can see the orange blotching on the "in progress" photo. I now keep a piece of paper next to my drawing and touch the pen down before starting a new line. Not a solution, but a work around.
Joer_B (@JoerB)
@Ilga It's not the age or the manufacturer, I find that all ballpoint pens do that. Some papers aren't absorbent enough and the tiny ball at the tip ends up accumulating an excess of ink that would eventually smear across the paper. I have very cheap pens and really pricey pens that vary in age - they all blob on me if I'm using the wrong paper. I use an absorbent paper towel and slide the pen around on it regularly at a slight tilt. The reason you don't see the blobs on my drawings is that I get rid of them in Photoshop. My originals contain a lot more blobs :-)
Ilga Jansons (@Ilga)
@JoerB Thanks so much for the advice. I was at a loss on the blob issue. I shall try some other papers. Currently, I'm working on a color sample, flower piece...but when done with that, shall experiment with papers. Thanks for the tip. Another question: Do you consider the original drawing the "piece" or the .PDF or a print as the finished piece? If it's the original, do you worry about ink fastness? For example for your friend's lovely dog drawing, what did you give them? Again, many thanks for your generous help.
Joer_B (@JoerB)
@Ilga So sorry for the late reply. I gave my friend a signed inkjet copy of the original drawing. I consider the original analog drawing as one step in my process of working. After achieving a reasonable level of finish, I scan the drawing (super high resolution) into my computer. I then colour correct the image file and do further edits in Photoshop or Affinity Photo. I might also do some further drawing in sections of the image inside Corel Painter. After I’m happy with the results, I print out a copy on my large format Epson 3880 inkjet printer - Epson guarantees the print will last several decades with reasonable care and precautions. You are correct in the colour fastness of cheap ballpoint pens - they don’t last as long as a good quality inkjet print on high quality archival paper. My originals are sitting inside a box in the corner of my little studio. I don’t think I would be comfortable selling them knowing they would only last for several years. Hope this helps. Again, sorry for the late reply.
Ilga Jansons (@Ilga)
@JoerB Thank you, yet again for your informative reply! I learn so much from hearing about your process. I am a bit old-fashioned and behind the times. Even though I started in the computer world back in the early 80's, I just haven't thought much about using technical tools to enhance my drawings/paintings, beyond making a scan to post on-line. Goodness, I didn't even know that Corel Painter is alive and well. Somewhere deep in attic storage, I still have the original paint can that they used in the early days for shipping Painter disks (yes, disks, not discs! I go back a long way!). Thanks for the Affinity reference. We have a two computer licenses for Photoshop, but didn't want to go the extra monthly for another license for my laptop (which I keep in my drawing studio). Affinity will do the trick, I downloaded it this morning. Ahhh, color correction on the computer...I was wondering how to do subtle colors with the harsh ball point colors available. Devil of a time even finding even yellow pens! I have printed my drawings/paintings for greeting cards (for charity, mostly) but never thought of them as actual "multiples," in the sense of numbered serigraphs or etchings. That's interesting to me. Thanks so much for your information. BTW: ilga@edgewoodgarden.com
Margaret Langston (@madmargaret123)
Wow. You did this with ballpoint pens? Amazing.
Ilga Jansons (@Ilga)
@madmargaret123 Thanks. I must say, it's a slow medium for me....but I am not a master at this AT ALL. Just starting to play with ballpoint pens. Fun to explore, though!
David Wilson (@David50Wilson)
@Ilga In the past I found that Parker pens were less inclined to be botchy, but I am no pen expert.
Ilga Jansons (@Ilga)
@David50Wilson Thanks, David. I shall check out the Parker ballpoint pens....I have a couple of "mid-century" Parker vacumatic fountain pens that I treasure!
Lanah xiong (@Lanahyawnuwuw)
i cant even draw XnX TEACH ME
Joer_B (@JoerB)
@Ilga @Ilga @Ilga Sorry Ms. Jansons, I took a social media break for several weeks. After I came back, I lost track of our online conversation. Hope this reply finds you well. ---Yes, I remember buying Fractal Design Painter in a paint can! The application had more than 15 diskettes and took forever to load on my Mac. As for Adobe Photoshop, I have to use their application suite for my 9to5 job, so I have to pay the Adobe Ransom. Affinity at least has a buy-once-keep-using-forever model. ---I agree that ball point pen colours are rather harsh, so my solution is to not use the same pen pressure as when I'm writing. Instead, I use light, consistent pressure that generates a really light line. If you compare my first post on Doodleaddicts to my more recent ink piece, you can see how my pen pressure evolved from normal 'heavy' writing pressure to a light contour following line. I keep to one section at a time, one colour at a time. Once I'm satisfied with the density of the ink coverage, I move on to the next section or colour. As you've seen in my previous posts, I usually lay down the red ink layer first and move on to the green, yellow and in rare instances where I need more density in the dark areas, the black ink. In this way, I can control some of the colour harshness. As for the finding yellow ink pens, I've had as much trouble looking for them as you have. The yellow gel pens that are readily available are extremely harsh looking. This is the main reason why I've settled into buying those cheap 10 colour novelty click pens - their yellow seems to be the only yellow I can work with. I've recently found special edition yellow Bic pens on Amazon and tried them out. Unfortunately, they too are too bold and brash. I really have to control the coverage. I'm still happily using the cheap novelty (Hello Kitty) pens. Hope all of this helps you out.
Ilga Jansons (@Ilga)
@JoerB Well, seems that we both took a long hiatus from DA ---mine was for MONTHS. I've been "caving" with my husband and we have thoroughly enjoyed not doing social stuff. We've had plenty of social media required in our dyeing business...but I am sticking my toes back in to purely social social-media. In case this doesn't work, I'm putting an aschii paragraph symbol in now: ¶ (The lack of paragraphs here makes me crazy. Just a wee bit old-fashioned and dated, I know). I did find some interesting ball point pens which have a good yellow and a nice chartreus green (for plants): MUJI --- a Japanese brand. Their yellow is bright, but not as orangey as some of the others AND the pens come in different point sizes, including 0.5 and 0.38, so that you can get a quite fine and controllable line. Just FYI. Thanks, also, for such a good description of your actual drawing process. It helps a lot. I have done some experimenting with papers and have found that the high gloss photographic printing paper is great fun. I found a 1/2 ream of tabloid size at the Goodwill for a couple of bucks. It's been fun giving it a whorl.