Tag: hatching

Hugo

I decided while drawing this portrait of Hugo from Sktchy that ballpoint pens are now my favourite drawing medium. My skills have been improving gradually since I took Robin Hilthouse’s Sktchy course many months ago and I now feel very comfortable drawing with them. I’ve developed a style that I’m happy with and I love the meditative quality of just hatching slowly away, interpreting the planes of a face through the limited palette of my small collection of Bics.

I drew this portrait with 4-way multicolour Bics plus a couple of Bic Cristal pens in brown and Neon orange in a Life Noble Note Plain notebook.

Atlas

This portrait of Atlas from Sktchy needs more work but I’ve run out of steam. Hatching takes time and effort and right now I’m having a pain and fatigue flare and I don’t have the energy to keep going on it. So I’m leaving it here. Maybe I’ll come back to it another day. Or maybe I won’t…

Drawn on an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil using the Procreate app.

Ayshin

This is the lovely Ayshin from Sktchy. I totally messed up the headscarf in the portrait so I had to change the colour from a creamy yellow to purple to disguise my disaster which works OK, but isn’t quite what I had planned. I wish I had left the scarf alone as a line drawing and hadn’t attempted to add colour to it at all. There’s a lesson there for me in putting a little more thought into when to stop drawing.

I drew Ayshin in my Life Noble Note Plain with Bic 4-way multicolour ballpoint pens.

Dennis

I’ve been working on this portrait of Dennis from Sktchy very slowly for days, scratching away on my iPad Pro with the ballpointy brush. I’m finding building up layers of colour through slow hatching so very meditative.

Henry

There is always something very satisfying about drawing with that most humble of drawing materials, the Bic ballpoint pen. This is Henry from Sktchy, drawn in a Life Noble Note Plain notebook with Bic Cristal and Bic 4-way multicolour ballpoint pens.

Cosmic

This is Cosmic from Sktchy. The inspiration photo has fantastic intense colour but I ran out of steam long before I got anywhere near those intense blues and reds. Maybe I’ll come back to it another day and finish it off.

I drew this on my iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil using the Procreate app.

Stephanie

Over the last 6 months or so, since I took the Sktchy’s Portraits in Pen course, I have gradually fallen in love with ballpoint pen drawing. After a lot of experimentation I’ve found my own style and I find ballpoint pen drawing so beautifully meditative. It’s what I turn to when I’m feeling most stressed because I know it will calm me down and chill me out.

Today was quite full on so I picked up my Bics and drew the beautiful Stephanie from Sktchy in my Life Noble Note Plain.

Anastasia

I drew Anastasia from Sktchy with Bic ballpoint pens in a Life Noble Note Plain notebook. I have to say that drawing with ballpoints is definitely the most therapeutic kind of drawing I’m doing right now – hatching in one direction is just so meditative.

Jasmine

More scribbling with Bic ballpoints for today’s portrait of Jasmine from Sktchy in a Life Noble Note Plain.

Kelmy

I’m finding making these hatched ballpoint pen drawings very therapeutic. It’s something about gradually building a face out of parallel lines, well not entirely parallel but the best that my painful hands can make! This is Kelmy from Sktchy and I drew him with Bic Cristal and Bic 4-way multicolour pens in a Life Noble Note Plain notebook.