Falling in love with the humble ballpoint pen

Contentment
8x10 inches
Coloured Ballpoint pen on Ampersand Claybord

I was doing some research the other day in preparation for a new artwork and stumbled across some ballpoint pen drawings which really inspired me to pick up the ballpoint pens and attempt another drawing using this medium. I attempted one a few years ago, but combined it with ink and inktense pencils so it couldn't really be called a ballpoint pen drawing. This time, after trying the pens on an assortment of papers, I tried them out on the Ampersand Claybord, which really helped with some of the problems you can come across when using pens. At least if you make a mistake or get one of those unsightly blobs of ink, you can very gently scratch off the surface and resume your drawing and this is a huge plus. There are some concerns about whether drawings done with ballpoint pens could fade over time. I have sprayed this one with 7 generous coats of varnish and am going to hang onto it for 6-12 months and then rescan it to see whether there actually is any fading. You can view a speed drawing of this artwork on YouTube. The reference photo for this gorgeous tiger was provided with kind permission of DigitalART2 on Flickr.  I found this piece really exciting to work on, and will be experimenting with a few more pieces - so watch this space :)

Please Don't Go - a change of media

Please Don't Go

8x11 inches

Ballpoint pen, micron pen and Inktense pencils

on Polyester canvas

Recently I received an email from one of my friends with a photo of her son's HSC art assignment. I was fascinated to find that the majority of the self portrait had been done with biro, or ballpoint pen and this inspired me to do some research and experimentation in the use of ballpoint pen as a serious medium for use in art. There are quite a few artists now who used the ballpoint pen in their artwork, one of them most notably is Juan Francisco Casas who creates huge photorealistic artworks in blue bic pens. Another artist Allan Barbeau spent 96 hours doing an amazing reproduction of the Mona Lisa using only ballpoint pen.

Mostly I have tried to use ballpoint pens with an ISO 12757-2 rating because this ink is the most archival, but I also used bic pens for some of the finer work. Working with the ballpoint pen gave a mixed sense of satisfaction with the way lovely gradients of shading could be achieved from soft right through to deep and dark, but also some angst, as there really is no room for error, so in that way, it is quite an unforgiving medium. For now though, I am hooked and for my next artwork, am aiming to work on a bigger canvas, so will probably need to post progress shots.