The Illustrated Pen

San Diego Zoo Elephant in Black and White

2011-09-21T16:40:00.000-07:00

This illustration of an African elephant started with a photograph we snapped at the San Diego Zoo several years back. The original photo was not that great and, in fact, there was a cable running horizontally through the middle. In pen and ink, I was able to clean up the composition substantially and come out with something that looked interesting and pleasing to me. This illustration was done with the stipple technique and probably took more than 30 hours. Stippling is good for capturing subtle variations of tone but bad on the hand. There could possibly be more than a million individual ink dots on this drawing.

I have been learning a lot about scanning and photographing artwork allowing me to put these images on line. At first glance, it would seem that scanning pen and ink drawings would be very straightforward; just black and white, right? However, I have found that my ink is never perfectly black and when scanning I must scan in gray scale, not pure black and white. Then, the paper is never perfectly white and the surface texture will show up if I am not careful. After doing some on-line research I found some relatively simple techniques utilizing the advanced scanner software capability (adjusting the light curve and histogram). Then it is a question of further adjustments, matching what you see on the original illustration against what you see on screen and what the printout looks like.

You can click on this image to see a larger view.

Transported Lion

2011-08-22T16:49:00.000-07:00

This latest pen and ink illustration is of a young, male lion. I started with a mediocre photograph I snapped at the San Diego Wild Animal Park (Now the Safari Park). I decided to transport the lion back to what I imagined would be something like his native African habitat by modifying the background. The background is purely a figment of my imagination.
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Faces of Penang - Generations

2011-07-15T16:53:00.000-07:00

During my stay in Penang this year I had an opportunity to attend the Thaipusam festival. At the foot of the hill leading up to the Indian temple I happened to snap a photo with my iphone of three generations of women taking a break in the shade on a very hot day. The photo was not all that great but I liked the composition and used it for the basis of this pen and ink illustration. I really liked the contrast in the women's ages, each one gazing in a different directions and the variety of textures.

2011-02-12T02:35:00.000-08:00

I have walked up Penang Hill several times now, both on the so-called Jungle Trail starting at the Moon Gate by the Botanical Garden and also by way of the Jeep Trail, also originating at the Botanical Garden. Each time I have gone, I have seen monkeys. They are all over the place, jumping through the trees, rummaging through the dumpsters, and up on the hill waiting for someone to drop something. I have been told by some that the monkeys can get a little nasty. If you are carrying something and are not careful they might grab it from your hands and take it up into the trees. The day I ran across this fellow, I was on the Jungle Trail. He and several others were on the trail in front of me and in the trees above. As you can see, he was much more interested in his buddies in the tree than he was in me. Another day, I was walking down the Jeep Trail at about 6PM in the evening and it seemed like the entire monkey population was out on the road looking for dinner. I literally walked through the monkey gauntlet. There were monkeys on both sides of the road; there were big ones, little ones, everywhere. I decided to ignore them as best as possible and they did the same for me.

This picture was sketched from a photo I took with my iPhone. For some reason I could not get him to sit still long enough to pose for the picture on the spot.

2011-02-04T03:06:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy time. My company has stationed me at Penang Malaysia for 3 months. This has given me plenty of time to get around and see the sights on the weekends. Not much chance for drawing lately, but here is an image that I captured just a short walk from my hotel. I did a pencil sketch on the spot in my moleskin notebook and then came back and worked over it with a ball point pen. The quality of the image is not that great as I had to take a picture using my phone.

This is a great spot for a stroll in the evening just before sunset. There is usually a stiff breeze and there are literally hundreds of kites for sale and little kids and old flying them. There is a narrow waterway here between Penang Island and Palau Jerejak which you can see to the left. I will be working on some other drawings soon.

A Special Guest Artist at the Illustrated Pen

2010-11-14T07:37:00.000-08:00

I would like to introduce a special guest artist at the Illustrated Pen site; the up and coming talent - my niece - Sarah Hawks.

Sarah thanks for sending me your drawing. Keep up the good work...

The Roadking is Ready for the Road

2010-10-30T13:51:00.000-07:00

After a lot of work to polish the chrome the bike is finally ready for the road. I have never done something with as much shine and glare as this illustration. Getting the glare of the sun reflecting off the chrome required some advanced planning so as to leave white space to give the starburt affect. I am glad to be done with this one having taken over a month of elapsed time. Click on the image for a larger view.

Road King - Where the Rubber Meets the Road

2010-10-09T11:29:00.000-07:00

Working on the front wheel was by far the most difficult aspect of this illustration so far. Geometric objects are hard to get right; in this case the round shapes of the tire and the rim, the symmetric spokes, etc.. In fact, it did not come out perfectly, but it is not bad. Animals and organic objects are much easier to do in the sense that slight distortions of some detail will not show up.

Harley Davidson Road King

2010-10-02T13:49:00.000-07:00

Despite the fact there is less ink in this drawing of the Road King than in the previous drawing of the dog, this drawing has taken many times longer to just get to this point. The level of complexity in this drawing is very high. In addition, the bike is made up of smooth shiny surfaces with many reflections of the surroundings and the sun. I had to decide on the best strokes that I could use consistently throughout the drawing to achieve the proper surface texture and uniformity. Although other strokes would work, I decided on the stippling technique as that would give me the most control and would allow me to adjust things with the addition of just a few dots here and there. Click on the drawing to enlarge it.

Simple But Effective

2010-10-02T13:31:00.000-07:00

This was a very simple illustration; large masses of black with just a few highlights to suggest the pup. Despite the simplicity the mind's eye has a way of adding in the mssing detail making the drawing look more complex than it really is. Just a few highlights suggest shape, form and texture for the entire body.

Better than the original

2010-09-01T14:51:00.000-07:00

I have started a new, relatively simple illustration. I work a lot from photos and one of the things I like about pen and ink is that I can creatively enhance the original image in many different ways. In this particular case we had a relatively poor photo of a black lab pup.

However, in this first stage of the illustration the image already looks more interesting, at least to me. I was also able to correct the missing portion of her foot. Moving forward I have continuing opportunity to enhance the drawing.

Learning Gymkhana - Pen and Ink and Colored Pencil

2010-08-28T08:52:00.000-07:00

Here is the final shot of this project after finishing off with colored pencil.

Rounding the bend

2010-08-27T13:10:00.000-07:00

Well, the rendering work is done. This was a difficult illustration and probably took 15 hours. There were a lot of details and, again, working on a face made it doubly difficult for me.

More Rendering

2010-08-26T16:32:00.000-07:00

I continued on with rendering the illustration. I worked on he face to make it look more like my daughter and needed to use the technique for removing ink (described in an earlier post). It took me quite a lot of working the ink to get an acceptable result. As I said before, people are not my favorite subject; it's too easy to make them look like someone else.

Contours

2010-08-22T20:32:00.000-07:00

Despite the nearly black appearance of the horse's hair I spend a lot of time trying to get the pen strokes to follow the natural contours of the horses body. In the bare patch of the horse's shoulder can be seen some guidelines I have drawn to map the way for the remaining pen strokes.

Ye Ha!

2010-08-21T12:33:00.000-07:00

My next project takes on a difficult subject for me... People. This is a composite of a could of views of my daughter during Gymkhana competitions. Here I have put the two views into a composition that I like and I have inked all of he black areas of the illustration.

The Final Final Product

2010-08-10T21:15:00.000-07:00

After some helpful suggestions by people I know I have added some color to the picture. This will be the final final post on this project. I used colored pencil here.

The Final Product

2010-08-06T12:15:00.000-07:00

My hope had been to grab a few pictures of this bird before he flew away. But instead, he was determined to finish his meal; a foolish young rabbit that had not yet learned to look up before going out into the open. This hawk happily continued eating breakfast while I snapped away and moved around to get several different views of him. I probably spent 20 minutes and ended up with about 100 pictures, some of which were amazing closeups of his face that would normally require a telephoto lense (one view of which has been added to the drawing). Instead, my shots were taken with just a simple pocket digital camera.

Finally, I decided to leave him in peace and soon after he flew off to a tree with the remainder of his meal (another view also shown in the drawing). Throughout the afternoon he was visible from our house sitting in the tree, probably snoozing with a full stomach.

Patience Pays Off

2010-08-04T21:40:00.000-07:00

As I sat eating my breakfast looking out the kitchen window to the east I saw a large bird fly by. I went into the backyard and could see that it was a hawk sitting in the neighbor's tree. Although not expecting much I went back inside to get my camera and then came back outside hoping that he would fly nearby again and that I might get a picture. After waiting for about 10 minutes the hawk swooped out of the tree down the hill behind my house. He hit something hard but I could not see what it was over the bushes down the bank. A moment later I saw his head pop up above the bushes about 40 yards away. I walked out my front door and down the road behind my house. From the road I could see the hawk sitting in a small clearing in the brush and he had grabbed himself some breakfast as well. There is a dirt access road that runs right up to where he was sitting so I decided to walk down to it and slowly inch my way up to get as close as I could while snapping pictures before scaring him off. Before long I was within 5 feet of this bird and getting some fabulous shots, including the one I used here for my model. He was not about to give up his meal for a mere human. More in the next post...

Inspiration from the wild in the backyard

2010-07-31T19:12:00.000-07:00

It has been sometime since I was last at the drawing board with other life things getting in the way. However, in June I had a great opportunity to get up close and personal to this fellow, right in my own backyard. This is a red tail hawk and he inspired me to get back to work. I will tell you more about how I met this guy in future posts.

More Color

2009-08-11T20:44:00.001-07:00

Here is the latest:

I was not happy with the sky. It was too grainy due to the texture of the paper. The color was good, just grainy. See the image below.

So, I burnished the blue with a white pencil. This requires bearing down on the pencil with a heavy hand while being careful to avoid previously colored areas. The burnishing with white maintained the color while smoothing out the graininess.

I also wanted to add some more depth to the color in the monkeys. I have already used 3 or 4 colors in the image below.

I used a reddish, brown pencil to highlight a few areas; for instance, the monkey's haunches and tail, as below.

Evolution of the picture

2009-08-08T10:37:00.000-07:00

I continue to use the pencils on the picture. More and more layers of color are added, especially to the monkeys and you will notice the drawing is evolving from a colored pen and ink drawing to something more like a hybrid of the two media. The harsh edges of the pen drawing fall away as the ink is covered by layers of burnished pencil, yet some of the pen texture still comes through.

You can click on the image for a larger view.

Nearly Done

2009-08-02T11:09:00.000-07:00

Now the leaves are being colored. I purposely posted the image at this point to show the contrast between the areas with color and those without. I have used primarily one color for the leaves but will probably go back and layer on some other color towards the end. I have also added some more color to each of the monkeys.

The Sky's the Limit

2009-08-01T12:24:00.001-07:00

I have started to add the color that will bring out the foreground and set back the trees. Colored pencils are used here with layers of colors added to the monkeys.

Back Again

2009-07-25T12:43:00.000-07:00

Well, I am back at it again after a long absence; a combination of work and family activities have kept me off the drawing board, just leaving these monkeys hanging for several months.

Here is the latest. I have completed the basic inking. Right now the drawing looks flat, but I plan to add color with pencils and this should bring out the depth in the picture. Completing the foliage was tedious but necessary.

You can click on the image to see a larger view.

Filling in the background

2009-03-01T15:55:00.000-08:00

Now begins the background work. There is a lot of foliage to draw but it is actually going relatively quickly. You can click on any of these images to see a larger view.

Here is a portion of the upper left corner.

I am a little concerned about the contrast between the monkey and the background foliage. The monkey does not stand out as much now as before and I want to avoid this. I have some tricks that I will illustrate in later posts to bring the monkey back to the front.

In the thick of it

2009-02-23T16:41:00.000-08:00

As promised, here I show a comparison of the first fur rendering to one with more contrast and depth.

2009-02-21T08:44:00.001-08:00

Adding fur to the monkeys takes careful work. The pen strokes should follow the contours of the real fur. The guy hanging from the tree is a challenge because hit coat is relatively light in tone and there are stripes of bright sunlight and shadow that need to be captured. I don't want him to look striped, but shadowed. I will continue to build up this region and will show a comparison in the next post.

Another challenge with fur is that you need to plan where it will be. For instance, the fur on the backside of the hanging monkey's legs overlaps a shadowed region. So, since this is pen and ink, I must build up the darker areas behind the fur while leaving lighter regions of the paper to represent the fur as shown in the closeup below.

Adding Detail

2009-02-17T10:36:00.001-08:00

I am not sure what type of monkeys these are. I may have to visit the Animal Park again to find out. If anyone else knows, I would appreciate a heads up.

I continue to add some more detail in pencil before starting the inking process. My goals in this drawing are:
1) Capture the rapt attention of the monkeys as they peer to the right.
2) Capture the depth and space of the image. The monkeys are in the foreground sitting and hanging from two branches. Somewhat behind them are the trees and sky. The trick will be to properly represent this through a combination of detail and light in the foreground and less detail and washed out colors in the background.

Hangin' Out

2009-02-15T11:31:00.000-08:00

My wife snapped a photo of these two monkeys several years ago at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. I really like the composition of this image and the monkeys' poses as they are clearly intent on something happening to the right. The San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park are great places to get close up views of wild animals in a natural environment.

I am starting out by doing a very detailed workup of the image in pencil first. There is still a little more to go on the pencil before I start the inking.

The Twilight of Steam

2009-02-11T22:10:00.001-08:00

This is the last post on the steam locomotive project. I added more contrast to the sky, darkening some regions and adding some clouds. I also added in a few more details on the engine and the rails. There is always something left undone in a picture, but I do not want to overwork this one either.

This picture is symbolic of the railroad industry. The photo on which it was based was snapped by my dad in 1949, which in a sense was the end of the line for steam, and the end of the hey days of rail in general. Imagine, 1000's of people showing up in Chicago in 1948 and 1949 to attend a railroad fair. It could not happen today...

I really like the idea of rail travel. Compared to traveling by air nowadays it is so simple and innocent. You just step onto the train with your bag and away you go to your destination where you simply step off again. No major security checks, no major hassles. In the past two years, I have taken the Amtrak Down Easter from Portland Maine to Boston and the Surfliner from San Diego to Los Angeles. Both were great experiences. Nothing fancy, but still easy and fun. Flying is obviously faster once you are in the air, but if you account for travel time to the airport, security checks, and waiting on the tarmak short haul rail is quicker. I would really like to see more rail travel available.

Perhaps with the new emphasis on green technology rail will be able to make a profitable comeback. I heard an ad on the radio the other day by CSX (the old Chesapeake and Ohio) that says they can move a ton of freight over 400 miles on one gallon of fuel. In the ad, they compare this to mowing a lawn on a gallon of gas. Pretty amazing. The main problem with rail is that you can only go a limited number of places. Steam was definitely not a green technology as can be seen in the drawing below, but diesel technology is certainly efficient.

Cinders and Ash

2009-02-09T17:34:00.001-08:00

Today, the smoke trail was added along with the sky. The guidelines used in the sky have been erased. Hills and trees are suggested very loosely with some vertical strokes. Again, the goal is to achieve a sense of action, of motion, of depth and of power through a combination of shape and dramatic lighting.

Yesterday's progress is included as a contrast to today's. In addition to the sky, shadowing has been added to the body of the locomotive.

Smoke Gets in my Eyes

2009-02-08T20:48:00.001-08:00

I have started inking the smoke billowing from the locomotive stacks. I believe this gives a real sense of movement and action to the picture. The lines in the sky are pencil that I will use as guidelines for horizontal shading of the late afternoon sky. Eventually the pencil will be erased.

Decisions

2009-02-07T11:33:00.001-08:00

I decided that the illustration should have dramatic lighting. It will be late afternoon with the sun coming in at a low angle from the right and to the rear of the scene. This will provide bright highlighted surfaces and deep, almost black shadows on both the locomotive and the billowing smoke. The first step is to add the deep shadows to the picture as seen below. (click on the image below to see a larger view)

Back at the Throttle

2009-02-06T09:33:00.001-08:00

In search of a new subject to draw I recently came across some old slides my dad had taken in the late 40's and early 50's. One that caught my eye is shown below. My dad traveled to Chicago to attend the Chicago Railroad Fair in 1949. The exposition was a two year event starting in 1948. This was the last great hurrah for the railroads as new modes of transportation were quickly coming on line.

The steam locomotive shown in this picture was sent to the fair by the Baltimore and Ohio. This engine was part of a general class of locomotive called the Yellowstone manufactured by Baldwin. This particular locomotive was relatively new; the first one being delivered to the B&O in 1944. According to some history I found on the internet, the B&O actually wanted diesels at this point but due to the war they were forced to purchase more steam.

Anyway, I have decided to tackle this quite complicated mechanical drawing. Pen and Ink is quite effective at capturing the technical nature of the subject. The quality of this old scanned slide is not that great and some of the detail is washed out. I was able to find other photos of this same locomotive (#7603) to supplement this drawing. In addition, this engine was on static display at the fair. I want to add action to the illustration, representing the engine in its working environment. Part of this entails removing the people from the picture. In doing so, I need to add the complex detail of the drivers that were hidden by the men in the foreground. The other photos I have found will help in adding the necessary detail. Additionally, I want to add smoke from the stack and steam to further give the impression of motion.

I spent a lot of time working up a pencil sketch of the locomotive prior to inking. I need to get perspective and proportion right or it will stick out like a sore thumb in the final illustration. The supplemental photos were valuable in getting the detail right. Here is the pencil sketch. This is perhaps the most detailed mechanical object I have tackled so far.

2009-02-02T17:53:00.001-08:00

Here is the final installment of the heron project. I have fully colored the illustration now with colored pencil. I changed the water to a greenish color rather than the original yellow. Somehow it just looks better to me. I did layer in yellow, blue and red along with the green, especially in the shadow areas. Again, this was done on a print of the original pen and ink, so I have both available.

While I was looking at some other photos, I found a fun one with the heron walking on the beach showing his big feet. The overall picture did not warrant a full project as above, but I decided to do a simplified version of the heron with the intent that my wife might be able to create a rubber stamp from it for her stamping and card making.

Then I got a little carried away and found another photo we had taken of a duckling. The original photo was not all that great but the end affect with a pen and ink rendering is fun. Well, I will see if she wants to create a stamp of this one too.

Taking it to the next step

2009-02-01T07:08:00.001-08:00

I decided to take this illustration to the next step by adding some color. I generally use colored pencil with my pen and ink drawings. I am often not satisfied with the result the first time around and to avoid wrecking the drawing that I have spent so much time on I printed it out on heavy card stock. It's a good thing, too, because I was NOT satisfied with my first attempt and adding color and started over.

One of the things I am finding with my printer and the card stock that we have is the black does not print out as black as I would like and certainly not as black as the original pen drawings. In the partially colored picture below I have adjusted the contrast and mid-tones to match the original as much as possible.

This image shows the drawing partially colored. I have used several different shades of green to achieve the proper combination of shadow and sun on the leaves. You have to be patient and layer on the color just like the directions tell you with spray paint. If you try to get the final color immediately you will be disappointed.

"Going deep...."

2009-01-30T21:13:00.000-08:00

The heron is nearly done. As I stepped back and took a look, it became apparent that the large leaves hanging down over the heron's head did not stand out enough. There is a lot of depth in this picture, but some of it was getting lost with everything behind the heron having about the same value. To make the leaves pop out and add depth I decided to darken up the undergrowth in the background. There are still significant highlights remaining where the sun is filtering through but now the leaves can be distinguished from everything behind.

In the upper left corner there are several interesting rocks. They are interesting, not so much for their shape and texture but rather due to the shadows that play on them. Throughout this picture one of the challenges has been to capture the sunlight amidst the deep shadows. The stones are one place that really allow the sunlight to be seen.

A third place that really shows the depth of the picture is in the lower right corner where there are several plants strongly highlighted by the sun. The combination of large size, a lot of detail and contrast with the dark, shadowy leaves behind really bring them to the front of the picture.

In keeping with my post from yesterday concerning journal drawing, I decided to do another quick sketch today. On my bookshelf is a compass I bought several years ago at LL Bean in Freeport ME. I really like the compass but, you know, I have never actually used it for navigation. I generally know where I am, or which direction I need to go when I am hiking and have never really had an occasion to use it. Anyway, I like how it looks and it caught my eye today as an item to sketch. This drawing was done with a Micron pen and colored pencil. In the future I will periodically post my daily sketches here along with my major projects.

A Brief Interlude

2009-01-29T17:27:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to interrupt this current project for an interesting Yahoo group that I found yesterday called Every Day Matters, located at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/everydaymatters/. Every Day Matters is a group of folks from around the globe that capture everyday objects and people and events in their lives in their drawing journals. It's an interesting concept that I was not aware of but I has caught my interest. The group was started by Danny Gregory and based on his book appropriately named "Everyday Matters".

So, as I was sitting on my couch today, our normal fearless hunter Harry the cat plopped down to take a nap right beside me and I decided to try out this every day drawing thing. I had to work fast since he was not really asleep and any noise would cause him to stir. Anyway, here is my first attempt at a live sketch. I used a Micron pen and colored pencils.

Here is a link to the book "Everyday Matters" at Amazon.

A Reflection on Reflections and Ripples

2009-01-28T17:28:00.000-08:00

When I first started this illustration I did not pay much attention to the reflections on the water surface. The water is almost perfectly flat with little to distinguish it. As I started the stippling process it became clear to me that there was not much to make the water stand out. As I looked at the photo in more detail I could see that there were some minor reflections and ripples. I had already stippled the area for some of the reflections and therefore I used the technique described a few posts back to scrape away the ink where I wanted a lighter feature. You can see this in the area underneath the heron's neck and underneath the leaves hanging over the water. I also decided to darken the shadow on the water underneath the leaves to make the reflections stand out more than in the original photo. The neat thing about the reflections is that they also give the eye a visual clue as to the location of the water's surface. For instance, the water surface is located midway between the leaf highlights and the reflection of the leaf highlights. This is a subtle effect but it goes a long way in defining this as "water" and not sand or some other smooth surface. I also decided to enhance the ripples radiating from the heron's feet. Again, this helps to define this as "water" but it also gives some action to the picture. The heron is either moving or has just stopped moving to look for a fish. Little details like this can really help to make the picture.

A Picture within the Picture

2009-01-27T15:58:00.000-08:00

As I work on an illustration as complex as this, I tend to break it up into smaller segments. This serves a couple of purposes; it breaks up the picture into bite size chunks and allows me to focus in a particular area so that I don't feel rushed to complete large swaths of the picture. There is also that important sense of accomplishment when even a small piece of the picture is completed to satisfaction. However, it is important when doing this to integrate the smaller pieces seamlessly into the larger whole; that the style, contrast, etc... are the same across the picture. As you look at the previous post with progression of the illustration, you can see the areas that I focused on. As I move along through the drawing I periodically step back to get an overview of the drawing and I will go back and work over previously "completed" areas if there is some sort of inconsistency. Another way to get a fresh view of the drawing is to look at it in a mirror; if something looks out of whack in the mirror, it probably looks out of whack to a new viewer too. Breaking up the picture into smaller units also prevents me from getting bored; working on a particular area for a long time can be tedious and I find it refreshing to move to a different part of the drawing to work on a fresh effect using different strokes. Completing something with this level of detail takes patience and care and these tricks will help to create a good final result.

Step by Step

2009-01-24T22:11:00.000-08:00

Here is a progression of the Heron drawing to date. So far, I estimate I have put in about 20 hours on this drawing. You will begin to notice that the look and feel of the image begins to deviate significantly from the photo and takes on a life of its own. There are several effects I wanted to capture, though; the bright sunlight shining through the vegetation and the smooth, reflective surface of the water. Lastly, herons are voracious fishers/hunters and I wanted to show this bird in action. I had several other photos, with different angles, different body positions and different lighting, but this one captured best all of the items above. (Click on any of the images to enlarge it)

New Illustration - Heron

2009-01-22T21:36:00.000-08:00

Today, we start on a new project. The subject - a heron photographed at the San Diego Zoo. I have decided to put a lot of work into the background. The heron itself is relatively simple and quick to do, but the background has a lot of detail and will really "make" the picture. There are a number of elements that will be included here; feathers, leaves, branches, and water. Here is the original photograph I am working from:

I really liked the lighting in this photo; shadows, back lighting on the bird, dark shadows and light highlights. All ideal for a pen drawing.

Here is a first view of the pen work:
(Click on the image to enlarge)

Whenever I start a new drawing I usually feel dissatisfied with its appearance in the early stages, but as I press on it begins to take shape. I have arrived at the stage of the picture where it feels like it is just beginning to take shape in the view above.

Permanent Isn't Always Permanent

2009-01-17T23:21:00.001-08:00

The truck is just about done. During the course of completing any ink drawing there is a high likelihood you will want to make minor changes to the drawing, either because you were a little wild with the pen (and you never stayed in the lines as a kid) or because later on you decide to add some highlights. Black pen is difficult to remove, but after reading articles about scratch board I decided to try a technique of my own. A sharp knife can be used to scratch away a little of the paper surface. I experimented, and found that the tip of my mechanical pencil (with the lead retracted) worked great. It was easy to hold and easy to control. Here is a picture of my pencil.

You don't want to use this over a large area and you do not want to use it repeatedly in the same spot as the paper surface is damaged in the process. Below is an example of the technique showing before and after.

Early on, when I first started out with pen and ink, I was not aware of this method so if mistakes were made, I had to use creative ways to hide the mistake. Now, I feel I don't have to live with the mistake anymore and will end up with a better picture in the end.

Forest for the trees

2009-01-15T21:01:00.001-08:00

Now we move into the woods behind the field. At first, I was a bit overwhelmed with the prospect of doing the trees and did not quite know how to proceed. I did not want to wreck the picture after all of the work I put into it. I even contemplated leaving the woods out of the picture altogether. But rather than give up I did a trial run. I made a scan of the image below and then printed it out. Then I tried various techniques for doing the trees. I never was quite satisified with the result and decided to dive in on the real thing. Nothing like the prospect of losing hours of work to get you to focus. (You can click on the image to enlarge it).

I started lightly and layered on the detail until I achieved a reasonable affect. Below is a segment of the woods. There were a number of different tree types represented here; eastern white pin, poplar, oaks, spruce and maple; all typical of a north eastern forest in the autumn. Depending on the tree, different strokes were used.

Below the trees are further away and therefore rendered with less contrast and detail.

And here is the final result.

Feathers

2009-01-13T19:10:00.001-08:00

Let's take a slight detour. I've started a new drawing. This, of a great blue heron that we saw at the San Diego Zoo. Since the discussion has been about pen strokes, this is a good example of stippling. The short feathers under the heron's head are done with dots or very short strokes. Further down the neck, as the feathers get longer I move to longer strokes. (click on the image to enlarge it).

Making Hay

2009-01-11T12:12:00.001-08:00

The field is the base on which the truck sits. Drawing the grass can be tedious but is an important element of the final illustration. Sometimes grass and other background items can be rendered in a loose, suggestive style. But I decided for this drawing that I would include as much detail as I could. The first image shows grass that is closeup and near the body of the truck. I try to draw pen strokes that are similar in direction and texture to those I see in the original photo. Of course I don't draw every blade of grass and the end result is still a suggestion of grass, but I believe it is quite effective.

I draw the grass quickly, yet I have to be careful to keep it from looking like a mass of scribbles. As I move along, I begin to "find" or discover some of the individual grass blades. I liken this to a sculpture in which the object resides in the block of stone until it is carved out. In a similar fashion, I use the negative space around some of the items I draw to define the object I am interested in. In this case, the grass seems to grow as I add strokes. In the picture above, the grass nearer to the wheel has more dark and shading in the negative space due to the truck's shadow.

The same shadow is present in the next picture where the truck shadow spreads out across the grass due to the angle of the ambient light. Also in this picture, some of the dark grass near the back of the truck stands out against the lighter field further in the distance. The texture of the grass begins to change as more distance is represented behind the truck.

The picture below moves even further back into the field. I assume the type of grass is the same throughout most of the field, yet distance dictates a different set of strokes to represent the grass. I use light and shadow to represent either a path or an old road through the grass.

Here is another example of "finding" the grass. The forest in the background is darker, and I needed to leave individual pieces of grass sticking up in the foreground.

More Strokes

2009-01-07T17:09:00.000-08:00

Let's look around at some of the other areas of the truck for strokes and effects.

Although the bumper is old the chrome plating is still evident with a shiny reflective surface in some spots. I used a combination of cross-hatching and parallel strokes again. The top of the bumper was kept white to indicate reflection of the bright sky above. Parallel pen strokes done with a light weight pen can sometimes make the shaded area almost glow simulating the affect of secondary lighting. At least to my eye that is the case with the bumper.

The drawing is progressing as I fill in more detail on the remainder of the truck.

I'll talk about the grass in my next post.

New Strokes

2009-01-06T16:28:00.000-08:00

I find pen and ink a fascinating medium. With simple strokes of a black pen it is possible to create a wide variety of effects, representing smooth surfaces, mottled surfaces, reflective surfaces, fur, bricks, leaves, grass. To get it right there are a variety of strokes that you should be aware of and it will take practice to get it right. In the next step of inking this 1940 Ford truck I will show examples of a couple of different strokes.

I generally focus on the main subject of the drawing first, since afterall, if I don't get this part right I may as well scrap the drawing and start over. Yes, this does happen sometime but usually before I have gone too far. In the view below, you can see the beginning of the rendering work on the truck. I'm sure that in 1940 this truck was shiny and spotless as it rolled off the production line, but now the paint surfaces are rusted, dented, flat and much more interesting for a drawing. As the inking begins you should be contantly aware of the light source, which in this case was an overcast sky but which still gave the majority of the light from the upper right hand side of the image.

(Click on the image for a zoomed view)

In a closer view of the truck you will now begin to see differentiation in the pen strokes.
Let's focus on the right front wheel fender. This is a curved surface, so the shading varies across its surface. The areas to be inked are roughed out in pencil first. The pencil lines can be erased later after you complete your drawing. I use a series of simple parallel strokes that conform to fender shape starting about about midway down the fender. Further down and to the left, the shadow gets darker so I add strokes more closely spaced and with a little more pressure on the pen. Then as we approach the wheel well it becomes darker still which is done by using a cross-hatch stroke.

Cross-hatch is also used in the large dark stained areas of the fender. These were done with a larger pen tip. Note that although darker than the other part of the bumper the stained areas also move from lighter on the top of the fender to virtually black just above the wheel.

With conformal lines and cross-hatch strokes you can accomplish a lot when rendering smooth or mechanical surfaces.

Beginning the Inking

2009-01-02T11:29:00.001-08:00

Since this drawing has a wide range of tones my first step is to ink in the darkest areas as solid black. (click on the image to see a zoomed view)

You must be careful to leave lighter toned areas uninked at this point. If you decide later that you want to make a minor change to an area, it is possible, but not easy or preferred. I will discuss this in a later post.

Here is a closeup of the area under the truck's bumper where the grass overlays the truck shadow.

For most of the darkest inking you can use the largest pen size to speed it up and use finer pens for some of the detail areas. You may need to go over the area several times to get a smooth appearance for the dark shadows.

Pen and Ink Reference Books

2008-12-30T20:48:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of reference books that I have used. The first is a classic in pen and ink illustration: "Rendering in Pen and Ink" by Arthur L. Guptill. This book was first published in 1930 but has received a number of updates over the years. Subject matter ranges from buildings, to landscapes to still lifes.

The second and more modern reference I have used is "Sketching Your Favorite Subjects in pen & ink" by Claudia Nice.

Both books are available at Amazon.com, both new and used. I highly recommend either one to learn more about this subject.

Roughing out the drawing

2008-12-29T06:44:00.001-08:00

The subject of this drawing is a Ford 1/2 ton flatbed truck dating from 1940 ( as far as I can tell). This truck sat in an old field near the house where I grew up in western Massachusetts. I used to roam the fields and woods as a teen and I captured a photo of this scene with my Pentax 35mm camera on black and white film. I snapped this photo about 30 years ago.

Here is the original photo.

The first step in rendering this image is to transfer a pencil sketch to my drawing paper. I have used a variety of methods to do this in the past, including freehand sketching, or overlaying a grid to the original photo and transfering small portions of the grid to the drawing surface. I have also used slides and projected the image on to the drawing surface and traced.

With the advent of scanner, printer combinations, I find the quickest and easiest way to transfer the image is to print a copy of the image on standard printer paper. Next, I blacken the back side of the printout with a graphite pencil. The printed image is then taped down to my drawing paper. I use a sharp pencil to trace over the main features of my drawing, capturing perfectly proportion and perspective.

Here is the resulting transferred image (click on the image to enlarge it):

Years ago I was worried about my artistic integrity and felt that somehow I was cheating by tracing the main aspects of the image. However, with time, I have decided that my goal has always been to capture the image as accurately as possible and my main work is to choose the proper composition and perform the pen and ink rendering. I tend to work from photos that I have taken and therefore I have started this process with my original photo.

For this project I decided I would eliminate the partial car image to the left. I did decide to keep the old VW bug in the background as it added depth and persepective.

Materials

2008-12-18T19:07:00.000-08:00

Before I get into the details of the drawing, let me describe the materials and pens that I use.

Pens
For a long time I have used technical drawing pens from Staedtler. I started out with their Mars Matic pen set, which has a variety of pen sizes, but last year I came across their Mars Professional pen set which requires virtually no maintanance. I like the low maintanance feature because there may be periods of time, due to job or family responsibilities, when I put the drawing aside for an extended period of time. When this happens you have to be careful to clean an maintain the regular technical pens, but the Mars Professional can be put away by just capping the nib. The only drawback that I find with this pen set is the limited pen widths (4), with the minimum size being 0.25mm. So far, this has not been a problem. Another thing to look out for is acid free ink. You want to make sure your ink is acid free to avoid yellowing of the paper over time.

Paper
I have used a variety of papers from a variety of suppliers but lately I have been using Bristol Vellum, 100lb, medium texture. I generally work with 11x14 sheets but usually do not use the entire surface. The paper surface should not allow the ink to bleed.

Scanner/Printer
As you can see, I post my drawings to the web and a good quality scanner is a must. We recently purchased an HP C8180 Printer, Scanner, Copier, Fax. So far I have been pretty happy with it.

Introduction

2008-12-17T20:48:00.000-08:00

Hello, My name is Doug Hawks.

In this blog I will provide step by step hints and tips for pen and ink drawing using examples of my own projects.

By way of introduction, let me say that I have a couple of interests; American History, primarily the American Revolution. Please visit my other blog at http://www.americanprivateer.blogspot.com/, to read a fictional journal compiled from the real life experiences of my ancestor Jacob Nutter who served with John Paul Jones during the American Revolution. Please also visit my other site for an on-line gallery of some of my pen and ink drawings at http://hawks.doug.googlepages.com/home.

For this first project I will describe the process for creating this image which, given the recent state of the auto industry I have titled - "Deep Weeds for the US Auto Industry". You can click on the image to see a larger view.