Learn to… Art!

Rethink Ink!

Jul 5, 2010 Drawing

If the only things ink brings to your mind are ball point pens and note-taking, think again!

Ink is yet another versatile tool in the artist’s tool box. Dark and rich with the ability to be watered down, ink can be used in many different ways with many different tools. Have a read through these techniques and see which one you’d like to try!

1. India Ink

India Ink is an opaque black ink that resists water when dry. It is as black as anything and makes for some beautiful line work. You can use it straight out of the bottle for a dark, striking black, or dilute it with water to create washes in a range of values. With india ink, a little goes a very long way!

A) Brush it On

Ink can be applied using a variety of different brushes. Bamboo brushes are made especially for ink: they have thick bristles to hold a lot of liquid and taper to a fine point. You can also use acrylic or watercolour brushes. Different brushes will obviously give you different brushstrokes, but they are good for creating loose, expressive lines. An art-school friend of mine even experimented with using brooms and mops to create large, expressive works!

B) Use a Stick?

Surprisingly, sticks are another tool you can use to apply india ink. Fat sticks, skinny sticks, it’s up to you to experiment! It’s also fun to try drawing while standing up, using a very long stick to draw on a large paper on the floor.

C) Random Objects

You can find unconventional tools all around your house and the outdoors. Pretty much anything can be used as a stamp to produce a repeating pattern.

2. Pen and Ink

It goes without saying that pen and ink go hand in hand, but it’s worth mentioning a few different types of pens and how they can be used.

A) Calligraphy Pen

These flat, wide-tipped pens are best known for writing fancy scripts, but they can also be used to create beautiful drawings. The traditional calligraphy pen requires refills of ink cartridges, which can be found in several different colours. The best thing about these pens is that you have a built-in strategy for producing variance in lines.

B) Bamboo Pen

A bamboo pen is much like a calligraphy pen, only it is made out of wood and has a blunt, flat tip. It is used by dipping it into a jar of ink and is similar to using a stick, except for that its round shape lets it hold more ink so that your line flows more steadily.

C) Fine Tip Pens

These drawing pens are perfect forcreating  finely detailed drawings. They come in a range of widths to allow you a greater control over value and are great for hatching and pointillism.

D) Ball Point Pens

As ordinary as they are, ball point pens are nothing to sneer at as an art tool. These pens can also be used for hatching and pointillism, and with enough finesse they can even create an illusion of smooth shading. Check out this ball point pen art for an example of what can be achieved.

3. Coloured Ink

Ink is also available in a huge range of vibrant colours. Called artist acrylic inks, they can also be diluted with water, and are water resistant when dry. Because inks are water-based, they can be used with acrylics. Oil-based media can be used on top of inks, but not vice versa.

Paint it, draw it, splatter it, drip it, dilute it…. whatever you do, try it! Ink is fun!

Tags: drawing tips, ink

How to Shade with Hatching and Cross-hatching

Nov 15, 2009 Drawing

Hatching is a fun way to let loose and shade your drawings in a different way. Hatches are small parallel lines that can be used to create depth and volume. Done well, hatching can produce a likeness as realistic as smooth shading, but it is much more expressive and can communicate emotions and atmosphere.

You don’t need anything special for hatching. It can be done with pencil; it can also be done with pen, charcoal, coloured pencils, pastels… you get the point. Basically anything that makes a mark will work!

Cross-hatching is another technique using hatch marks. This is when you use the same short, parallel lines, but you’re adding another layer of perpendicular lines on top. You end up with a series of crosses. Both techniques can be used to produce some very cool results!

How do you create value? For lighter values, make your marks less dense. For darker values, make your marks more layered and closer together. You can also try using pens of different sizes or pencils of different hardnesses to help with your values.

As with any shading, the key is getting a gradual transition.

Hatching can be done with parallel lines going in any direction: vertical, horizontal, or diagonal (as in the example). Hatching and cross-hatching can also be done using curved lines. This is more difficult, but it can be a great way to help describe the contours of a round shape.

Let’s try some hatching, using the sphere as our example again. I’m using pen, but you can try out any media you like!

Start by putting a few hatch marks around the highlight, without going inside the highlight. Make these marks far apart, as this is your lightest value.

Fill in the rest of the mid-tone area and the reflection, making your marks gradually closer together as you approach the shadow.

Fill in your shadow now, making your marks closest together in the middle of the shape. Make sure you have a smooth transition between the shadow and the mid-tones.

To do this in cross-hatching, simply add the perpendicular marks! Go ahead and try something a little more complicated! It’s not all that different from your normal shading.

A few tips to remember… If you have a large area of flat shadow, resist the urge to colour it in. It might be quicker, but it won’t have the same texture as the rest of your drawing. The same goes for any lines. Draw lines with a series of tiny hatch marks to make it consistent with the whole piece.

Tags: drawing tips, hatching, ink, shading

The Art of Collage

Sep 20, 2009 Art General

Have you ever collaged? If not, I suggest you try it! Collage is a great, pressure-free way to explore and experiment. Free of the “high-art” connotations of painting and the technical pressures of drawing, collage is the perfect way to let loose!

I got into collage in my third year of art school. We were doing an independent project and I had decided to work in a sketchbook. My plan was to draw sketches from life that would later lend themselves to more developed drawings.

To my surprise, I found my drawings becoming more expressive and abstract. I began bluing little bits of paper onto the pages and everything took off from there. The collages seemed to take on a life of their own!

What I ended up handing in at the end of the project wasn’t several large scale drawings as I’d planned. I handed in my entire sketchbook, which had become more like a journal, probably the most honest journal I’d ever kept.

I’ve been hooked on collage ever since. You might even say that some of my paintings are a form of collage!

The most attractive aspect of collage for me is the total lack of expectation and pressure. Painting and drawing are so bogged down in art historical context that it can be difficult to shake the pressure to create an art piece. That expectation can be like a weight pressing down, smothering your creativity and expression.

Collage can free you from these expectations and let you express yourself in new ways!

How to Collage

Well, there really are no rules!

All you need is some paper or different colours, patterns or textures, and some glue. A glue stick works best, or rubber cement. Start tearing up and gluing bits of paper down. Try to work quickly and intuitively, responding to your work instead of starting with an idea of what you want to create.

I usually start by gluing down bits of paper randomly. As more paper is added, I become more elective and try to find where each piece fits. If I can’t find the right place for a certain piece of paper, I leave it and try a different one.

To start with, you might find it helpful to limit yourself to certain colours. The majority of my collages are done in black, white, gray and orange. This helps keep me focused and creates a sense of harmony in something that could otherwise become very chaotic.

Reductive Collage

Don’t forget that collage isn’t just adding paper, it can also be taking it away!

This is the fun part!

Try tearing up stuff that you’ve already glued down. Move it around, glue it somewhere else. Collage should be a fluid process of give and take, add and reduce. If something doesn’t feel right, tear it off or cover it with something else.

Adding Other Media

Once you feel you’re finished with the gluing part, consider reworking your collage with other media. You could use ink and water, charcoal, pastels or anything else you have lying around.

Drawing into your collage is a good way to finalize things. You can add depth, create a focus and integrate the bits of paper with each other. You may also find that you move things around during this process too!

What to Collage

You can collage basically anything! Get creative! I’ve used photocopies of old journal entries, old doodles and drawings, pieces of paper that I’ve written my name on, interesting articles printed off the internet…

You could also collage with anything lying around your house: magazines, newspapers, junk mail, old bills, packaging and wrappers. Anything goes! Have fun and don’t be afraid to experiment!

Tags: art tips, charcoal, collage, ink

How to Shade with Pointillism

Aug 23, 2009 Drawing

Pointillism or stippling  is when you use a series of dots to create an image. It takes time, and loads of patience, but the results can be incredibly impressive!

For pointillism, you’re going to want to get some special pens. The best ones are fine tip pens with free-flowing ink. Ball point pens won’t work very well because they need to be moving for the ball to refresh teh ink. I’ve used Staedtler Pigment Liners. You’ll also want a range of sizes as well. Something like an 01, an 03, and an 05 would work well.

You want to make sure the dots of the different sized pen are blended together. You don’t want to see the border where you switched pens. Also, don’t rush your mark-making. If you get careless, some of your points might get little tails. You want nice clean dots to create an even surface.

As with any drawing, you want to start out with a good line drawing. Outline the contours of your subjects, as well as the shapes of the major shadows and highlights. You want to have good guidelines for when it comes to filling in the values.

When using pointililsm to shade, you need to think about values just like you do when shading with a pencil.

Around the highlights, use your finest pen and make the dots far apart. Avoid putting any dots inside the highlight area, but make sure that the points gradually become more and more farther apart closer to the highlight. You don’t want your marks to suddenly stop dead.

As the highlight fades to the midtones, switch to the middle-sized pen and mark your points closer together.

For the shadows, use the fatter pena nd make your marks close together. In the darkest areas, your dots may be so close together that no paper shows through. You might be tempted to  cheat and use the pen to shade in the entire shadow.

Try to resist!

It would be faster, but it would be obvious. With pointillism, it’s important to draw everything using only dots. The marks create a pattern or a texture that is visibile even in the solid black areas. If you have a really large area of black that would take you days to dot, you could try colouring it in solid, then adding a few dots on top to mimic the pattern.

Also, don’t draw any lines! Even if there are wrinkles or eyelashes, don’t draw a line. Use a series of points to create the line and it will look more natural. A solid line will be a distraction in amongst all those dots.

When your drawing is done, let the ink dry for ten minutes or so before erasing the pencil lines. You’d hate to smudge all your hard work!

Pointillism in Colour

You can also use pointillism with paints or pastels. You do this by layering different colour dots on top of eachother. When seen from far away, the dots blend together and create a different colour. A simple example of this would be dots of red and yellow, which would appear as orange from far away. This type of illusion was used extensively by Seurat. This example from Wikipedia is A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, by Seurat.

Tags: drawing tips, ink, pointillism, shading