Pen & Ink

Tools For Drawing

Pen/Pencil:

Fountain Pen
Japanese/Chinese Brush Pen
Rapidograph Pen
Lamy Pen
Dip Pen

Notable ink-illustration artists:

Aubrey Beardsley -

English Illustrator Aubrey Beardsley, born in the late 17th century; was an English illustrator and author. I am very familiar with his work after previously using his back catalogue for last year's work, but still found some interesting new discoveries I missed.

His work mainly comprises of illustrations that resemble very wavy, oceanic linework, with graphical elements applied in-between them to build pleasing pattern details to look at. I really enjoy his use of negative and filled spaces in his work, as it often times signifies where the lighter tones are in his drawings. Beardsley's work is very graphically-inspired, and I find it visually striking and worth attempting on my own.

Andrew Allsop -

Pierre Le Tan -

Andrew Allsop is a leeds based contemporary artist, who loves to primarily draw and paint the city architecture of UK areas. His work consists of some stellar presentations of buildings, street views, churches, and much more that can be found within any city/town.

He also enjoys illustrating real-life people in a style that resembles a cartoonist's approach to drawing. He likes to exaggerate proportions and create fun and abstract shapes out of the people he decides to depict in a drawing. But on the other hand, he sort of flexes his creative knowledge in a sense where he shows that Allsop also understands how to capture more accurate depictions, often with black ink and no colour.

Pierre Le Tan was a French artist active from 1950 - 2019), and had rose to popularity for his methods in etching and composition within his drawings. Upon closer inspection, Le tan's work can show some awe-inspiring detail in his use of etching, as the lines appear to be solid, but upon closer inspection; you can see that Le Tan had applied miniature lines in tandem with one another to create that illusion.

Methods & Techniques.

Cross Hatching -

Cross hatching is a certain technique that is used to simulate the effect of shading and utilises line-art instead of any type of colouring method. The way that cross hatching works is by layering diagonal line on top of one another to create an illusion of a solid shape/texture.

Etching -

Etching is a technique used to simulate lineart without actually having to draw a line. The technique is performed by lightly brushing the pencil along the paper.

There are many different effects that you can create with etching; ranging from lines that are stacked on top of one another, horizontal, diagonal, and sometimes even mixes of the two. It takes a long time to pull off, but the results in the end show a great understanding of lighting, texture, and form in the end.