How to Draw With Brush Pens

Series Summary

Drawing and sketching refers to two-dimensional pieces of art made by marking on a surface with a variety of mediums. Drawing tools can include graphite pencils, pen and ink, colored pencils, charcoals and chalk and pastels. It is the most foundational skill an artist possesses. The practice of drawing and sketching as an art form became widely popular in 15th-century Europe when paper became generally available. The famous journal of Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci contains hundreds of sketches, brainstorms and observations that inspire draftsmen today. Almost every form of imaginable art involves some level of drawing or sketching. In this free video series on drawing and painting, an experienced artist and art supply store employee discusses a few art techniques. Learn to use a few different mediums, such as oil paint and ink pens, and learn how to incorporate stencils into a piece of artwork. Find out how to sketch a variety of cartoons, learn to create a unique comic and get tips on drawing a facial expression. Start drawing and painting with this guide to creativity.

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name's David Lamplugh and I work for Asel Art supplies in Austin Texas. I'm here to talk to you today a little bit about using brush pens. Now, one question with using brush pens is, you know, why does this product exist? You know, it's a brush and a pen, its kind of unwieldy. Well, I've got an example of some of my work here that I've done on a regular foe technical pen, which is fine line weight pen. And you notice that all of these lines are the same width, they're kind of characterless, sure the detail's there, but they aren't really jumping off the page with dynamism, so art supplies manufacturers have created this nifty tool, called a brush pen. So, I'm going to show you a little bit about what this can do and show you a little bit how it can add dynamism to any sort of drawing that you're doing. With technical pens you wouldn't want to do all of this filling in motion, it would take entirely too long. But you can also kind of add weight to the drawings. See, there's supposed to be shadow here under the chin, so I just press down a little bit on the brush pen and I get a line that's a little bit thicker. Then I can do a little more free motion, see, we're supposed to have some motion in this cloth, so I'm going to work relatively quickly. Here, under the body, there's weight there, so I'm going to put a dark line. Outlines are also good, dark thick outlines the brush pens do are also good to separate the figure from the ground. I'm going to do the rest of this thing with technical pen weight lines. So, I want the figure to really pop out, there's not a better way to do that than a brush pen. It can even do fine lines, it takes a little control, but you can get as fine a line as you can with a pen. OK, so I finished my drawing using brush pens, and you can see the difference between the detail in the face and the stuff I've done with the brush pens. It's easier to get that line weight and the dynamism that you just never really get with a technical pen, it would take too long and you would sit there outlining strokes forever. You also can see how it easily fills in areas like that, giving you big blocky shadows, which I like in my artwork. Anyway, that's a little bit about brush pens and brush pen use."