How to Learn Pen & Ink Drawing
Pen and ink drawings can be some of the most realistic and sharp drawings out there. Since you have very little control over the actual tone and shade of the ink, you must learn the art of manipulating lines, using techniques like crosshatching, stipple shading and contour line shading. If you want to learn how to draw with pen and ink, there are a few general guidelines and tips that you can use.
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Instructions
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Use a pencil to outline your drawings and shading before you add the ink. This is a good technique for beginners to gain confidence before they try to do the drawing without using the pencil.
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Outline the main drawing with the pen, using strong, singular lines. Don't make it look scribbled, but rather bold and defined.
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Master the different ways to shade using pen and ink. You can use crosshatching, or straight lines that layer over each other to create tone. There is stippling, where you use dots to shade by clustering them together for darker areas and spreading them apart for lighter areas. Contour lining is when you use the outline or shape of an object to shade it by drawing lines that follow the curves of the object and cluster them together.
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Go over the outlined drawing and identify the separate sections such as the foreground, midground and background. This will help you know which parts of the drawing to fill in completely black and which parts to use shading techniques. Background spaces often can look too dark and distracting if there is too much shading or coloring. So try to save most of the articulate line work for the foreground and midground. As you get more comfortable with your own technique, you will be able to more easily pinpoint which parts of the drawing will benefit most from being completely colored in.
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References
- Photo Credit Pen image by Vasiliy Dmitrienko from Fotolia.com
