Dip pen doodles

Being a fan of ballpoints for drawing I thought I'd try out the "real thing" and got hold of a dip-pen handle and two nibs (they cost next to nothing). I already had some ink that's been sitting in my art box for years. Amazingly it's still 100% perfect. :)

Over the course of the last couple of days I created a couple of doodles. One of them is the picture above. A doodle is indeed all it is - I just picked up the pen and idly started tracing shapes and let the pen decide what they would become. The tree was drawn on a bit of white card.

Media: Dip pen with Hiro Leonardt 6H nib. Windsor & Newton inks and a small brush.

Mugabe ballpoint sketch

I had this great idea for a political cartoon featuring Zimbabwe's infamous leader, Robert Mugabe. Unfortunately, while I was sketching out the idea I got a bit carried away and almost a couple of hours later I had created this.

I'm not going to bother doing a critique on it for two reasons:

1) It was never meant to exist. It was supposed to be a quick ten minute sketch to base a cartoon on and to be honest I actually quite like it (even if the subject is a scumbag).

2) I'm trying to be more positive about my art work in the future. I've realised that my negative attitude to my work has been responsible for my lack of creative output.

2008 Doodle 1 - Army Guy

I suppose this is the first doodle or sketch of 2008. I've not been too productive on the artistic front due to a number of things. I'm hoping to get this under control and be playing with my ballpoint pens more.

I was making a shopping list (so I didn't buy a bunch of stuff I didn't really need) when I got sidetracked and doodled this guy at the bottom of it. Then I finished the list and went shopping.

It's funny when creativity hits you. :)

This was done with a crappy generic ballpoint that I'd picked up somewhere. It wasn't a very nice pen to write with, let alone draw with. Ah well. I didn't really notice when I was doodling.

When pictures go bad

Sometimes, not matter how hard I try I draw an image so unbelievably awful that I feel like destroying it. This image was one of those. I've posted it because I believe that I should keep all the bad drawings - and learn from them.

First of all - I'm not very good at portraits in any medium so I didn't expect this to be brilliant. The end result was more dissapointing than I expected it to be however. The subject was a friend of mine.

I accept the fact that I made a fair few mistakes with this one - and it's to be expected when I'm drawing in pen anyway. It's a permanent medium and therefore unforgiving when I make drastic mistakes. One of the mistakes in this one I tried to cover up but just ended up making it worse (hint - look for a particularly dark area).

Here's my critique (so you know why I hate it):

• Proportion: The eyes are slightly too large


• Proportion: The nose isn't wide enough


• Proportion: Because the nose wasn't right, the mouth isn't wide enough


• Proportion: The lips are too full


• Shading: Too scribbly instead of clean cross-hatching


• Shading: Possibly too dark - definitely in places.


• Shading: I screwed up the shading on one side of the mouth


• Error: I've made the subject look slightly cross eyed (oops)


• Media: The damn pen started making blobby marks during the shading. I guess it serves me right for not using a decent drawing pen. Sorry Crayola Roller, I don't love you anymore.

I should probably stay away from portraits as they're so clearly not my strong point but I guess they never will be unless I keep trying to do them.

Ostrich (a.k.a. more fun with a pen)

Still in the mood to draw things with my crayola roller ball I thought I'd tackle that most hairy and long-necked of birds; the ostrich. This was drawn on slightly better quality paper than the cat in the previous post but the pen was the same. Now, if only I had a 0.25mm pen... ;)

Kitty cat meow!

I had a spare 90 minutes and wanted to try the challenge of drawing a furry animal. I've never drawn a cat before and a good friend of mine is kitty-crazy so I thought I'd give it a go. This was drawn using a 0.7mm Crayola Pro Liquid Ink Roller. It's a nice pen - very smooth flow and good black ink but it's a bit wide to draw with really. A 0.5mm would have been better. I'm quite pleased with the end result. It's not perfect but for my first kitty I think it's OK. :)