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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

Shading Techniques: Hatching, Scribbling, Pointillism

Jun 29, 2009 Drawing

I have already talked about smooth, blended shading, which is what most people are familiar with. Today I am going to touch on some other shading techniques that allow the artist some creativity when it comes to texture. These techniques create patterns and texture through mark-making. You can do realistic shading with pretty much any mark, as long as you pay close attention to the tonal value and adjust your mark-making accordingly.

For darker areas  you can use a softer pencil or a wider pen, make your marks darker and closer together. For the lighter areas, use a harder pencil or a thinner pen, press lightly and space your marks out. You can use these techniques with almost any medium: pencil, pen, charcoal, pastel, etc.

If you’re thinking, “but I want my drawings to look realistic,” don’t worry! It is absolutely possible to achieve photorealism with these techniques. Drawings done like this can be very interesting because from far away, they look like a picture, and as you get closer you begin to see the patterns. For an excellent example of this, have a look at Chuck Close. His large scale portraits are extremely realistic from a distance, but closer up they dissolve into a combination of coloured marks.

This type of shading can be useful in portraying an emotion or a personality along with a likeness. Different techniques can even be combined to create different textures. Scribbled shading on a sweater, for example, can show that it is soft and fuzzy in comparison to smoothly blended skin.

The best part about this is that its fun and challenging! If you’r comfortable with smooth blending, or just want a new challenge, give this a try. It’s a great way to practice your drawing and observation skills.

Hatching

Hatching is a series of short parallel marks. The marks can be going diagonally, horizontally, or vertically, but they should all line up. You can also try cross-hatching, when the marks cross over eachother at perpendicular angles. This piece shows hatching done in charcoal.

Scribbles

This was done in ink by scribbling the pen back and forth. This piece happens to have all vertical marks, but you can also try a more messy approach to scribbling.

Circular Scribbles

This is the same type of scribbled shading, but this time the marks are all circular. Done in graphite, this could also be blended using circular strokes.

Pointillism

Pointillism is done with a series of dots. It is very time consuming can produce some great results!

Tags: better drawings, drawing tips, pointillism, shading