A love of Pen and Ink drawing.

I've always loved pen and ink drawing.  Hardly surprising really, we used pen and ink at school...dip pen, inkwells, and ink stained desks (remember them?)  So for a confirmed doodler like me it's only natural I'd draw with pen and ink (and of course, pencil).  Huge demands were made on limited  pocket money back then...paper was a problem.  Decent paper, I mean.  Woolworths sold a very cheap, and slim, drawing pad.  But this was only for  those times when I was flush...birthdays, Christmas, kindly visiting Aunts and Uncles slipping me a few coppers.  Then I discovered Woolworths also sold very small packs of typing paper.  This was OK, but not as good as the drawing pad.  And of course there was always the back of envelopes...people wrote letters back then...even wrapping paper came in handy.  Where there's a will, there's a doodle. I looked up the history of pen and ink drawing.  To be precise, I mean ink drawings.  Pens came later.  This is the earliest known ink drawing... ...it's Greek, from 300BC.  Artist unknown, but it has a title...'The abduction of Briseis.' The Chinese and Japanese are also famous for the early use of ink. Here's one from 1246 by Ma Lin, a famous Chinese artist.  It's called 'Listening to the pines.' I've brightened it up in photoshop, to make it clearer... Back then they'd make 'Pens' from reeds etc.  Alan did an interesting piece on making these.  Modern artists still like to use them. Here are some of the great pen and ink artists... ...this is from a book drawn by Gustav Dore about Victorian London, engravings were made from his original ink drawings.  Astonishing work. The above is by Franklin Booth, a brilliant American Illustrator.  Pen and ink reigned supreme in illustration until colour reproduction became more wide available. Above...Aubrey Beardsley, the British artist, famed for his linework.  There's little, or no, shading in his art.  Just line. This is by Harry Clark, another British Artist famous for his stained glass window designs.  Again no shading as such. Another American illustrator...Al Dorne...brilliant characterful drawing. A favorite of mine.  Al Hirschfield.  His drawing of the composer Irving Berlin. A modern artist.  Julia Hill.  She makes oddball images.  Love 'em. D Vincente draws vintage cars in pen and ink...an irresistible combination for me. An Australian artist...Lucy Hardie. An illustration in the style of Alphonse Mucha by Vinanti. More later.

I'll look forward to that Jenny.  I SHOULD HAVE SAID AT THE BEGINNING, IF YOU HAVE ANY  FAVOURITE PEN AND INKS PLEASE POST THEM.  A forum is always better with different views. I'm going to digress a little, it's still about pen and ink.  Recent events have had me re-evaluating my own work.  First I revamped my spare room which doubles as my studio and art gallery.  I wanted to change some pictures and struggled.  The second was the recent thread where we posted favorites of our OWN work.  I found that very little of my personal 'likes' were cartoons.  These must represent at least 60% of what I do.  It's fun drawing them, but when all's said and done I tend to prefer my other work. Old age brings changes.  I have to adjust to accommodate my old codger faults.  I struggle with brushes.  Luckily I'm OK with pens and pencils.  So more of that and less brushwork. Recently I've been adjusting, and it's revived my interest in pen and ink.  Although, it must be said it's never gone away. This is one of my earliest drawings that I have.  One of my son's friends ran a business reconditioning vintage Bakelite phones, he had a business card with a photo on it,  but wasn't happy with it.  I draw a pen and ink for it...these tend to reproduce very well.  This one did... ...some pointillism.  I see I used various sized dots, must try that again.  It's about 40 years old, and would have been done with a dip pen. A recent pic was this...drawn in ink... I drew what little there is of background with a grey pen.  The intension was to add colour washes that didn't require much 'careful' brushwork. Here's the finished work... I did a similar thing with a recent Sherlock pic...here's the underpainting.  Pen.  Solid blacks with ink.  Mid tones with payne's grey watercolour.  My son saw it at this stage and preferred it in monochrome.  I did finish it with thin washes of colour.  (Not happy with the buildings.) So this is the way forward for me now.  And pen and ink is vital. I spend a lot of time looking at art.  One of life's pleasures.  You'll often see the same subject or style repeated by many different artists.  One is endlessly repeated...a realistic outline filled with other things...like this...(sorry, no name for the artist)... I had a go myself some time ago.  Not copying this, just using the concept for my own drawing. Back to other people's art next time.

Al Dorne used a pen occasionally but mostly used a brush to draw, and he used waterproof inks to colour his work.  I'll come back to him. Some more inspirational pen and inks.... Above by J C  Halden. Above, and the close up below, by British artist Philip Harris... Below...the plague doctor by Richey Beckett... Below...British artist, William Heath Robinson.... More later...

Al Dorne's working method.  He would start with an extremely rough version, with no real details, just to establish the layout... ...when happy he would draw a highly detailed pencil version, to ensure everything was right.  He used watercolour inks to colour his pictures...not easy to correct...so get it right at the beginning...(these are obviously a different drawing, the rough shown above was the only example of this stage I could find.) Then with pen and brush he'd produce a monochrome version fully shaded and detailed.  The final stage would be glazes of waterproof coloured ink.  So, in some way the mono stage left it almost finished, all issues or problems solved... And finally, with the ink glazes added... Apparently he worked quickly and became one of the best known, and paid, illustrators of his time.  For me, the final painting, good as it is, is less interesting than the mono stage.  Just a personal thing. Dorne was excellent at crowd scenes... His drawings were superb.  Here's a couple more...all at one of the drawing stages, which would all be finished in colour glazes. Some other artists.  First Bernie Wrightson, illustrator of several gory horror graphic novels.  His pen and ink work is astonishing... A wreath drawing by Foli Swindler... And lastly, for now, some charming drawings by Deiter Lange, a German Illustrator of children's books...

I like Van Gogh's drawings.  Jenny has chosen the one I like most.  Brilliant. Yes, reed pens, quills and the like have a long long history...far more so than metal nibs.  I mentioned them at the beginning of this thread, and did look up the history of metal nibs but forgot to include it.  Copper nibs were found in Pompei and dated AD79, the Egyptians used copper and bronze nibs far further back.  We're told they weren't in widespread use because reed and quill pens gave better results.  Metal nibs were made in the 1700s, but were rare and expensive as they were handmade.  It wasn't until a Birmingham man began mass producing metal nibs cheaply in 1822 that led to their widespread use. So, as these things go, metal nibs are pretty modern.  It's interesting that with the huge variety of mark-making implements now, there still are artists making and using reed pens.