Inktober 24-26: Ballpoint sketches

These three Inktober drawings were created with a Bic Round Stic Grip ballpoint pen in fine/black.  I love sketching with ballpoint because it's ink that can travel with me anywhere.  I drew 24 and 26 in a new little Apprentice sketchbook by Baron Fig (link). It's a perfect pocket size and the paper is very nice!  It holds up to a lot of drawing.

Inktober 24, 2015

Inktober 25, 2015

Inktober 26, 2015

A Few Doodles

Hi everyone!  I've been busy with life things and haven't been working on anything I thought was worth posting, but I have been doing little drawings in my sketchbook.  I wanted to check in here and say "hello", so I'll go ahead and post a few sketches.  These are all drawn quickly in ballpoint. I'm liking ballpoint more and more!  No smudging, no sharpening, no stopping to dip a pen!

More Ballpoint Sketches

Here's an idea (or two) I was working on yesterday in my sketchbook. The sun was there first but got overrun by the bigger drawing!  These are drawn with black ballpoint pen and I think if I do a finished version I'll stick to ballpoint.  I love it.

Illustration Friday: "Suspend"

This illustration was done on some drawing paper I found that's as old as the inks I found last week!  I like the yellowed quality of it.  I used ballpoint pen and graphite for this.  They go well together I think!

Illustration Friday: "Secret"

For this week I did a quick, loose ballpoint pen drawing in my sketchbook, scanned it and tinted it in Photoshop.  It was time for a little romance!

Medieval in ballpoint

I love medieval images.  And nice, non-blobby ballpoint pens.  Right now I'm using Bic Round Stic Grip in black fine point.  Nice!  This was scanned out of my sketchbook from this evening.

Watercolor block sketchy doodles

Last night I used an old watercolor block page as a sketchbook.  I had just opened a little watercolor set ( Cotman Sketchers' Pocket Box by Winsor & Newton) and I really wanted to play around with the cute little blocks of watercolor.  I was sketching mostly with ballpoint pen so I couldn't correct anything.  Then I touched up some of the drawings with pen and ink after the watercolor dried.

You can see the little boy's head from the top picture in the bottom corner of the bottom one.  I cleaned the top sketch up to post alone because it was my favorite.  No judging the bad proportions!  Pen sketching means you just kind of....go with the flow!

Today's favorite sketch

This gal is wearing some large-sized shoes, eh?  I always did have trouble with feet. And today I wasn't looking at any reference to help me!  Still, I like the feel of this sketch and drawing a fashion-style figure felt really good, like going back to my roots. This was drawn in ballpoint pen in my sketchbook, scanned and laid on a pink background in Photoshop.

Sketchpage 1

I need to sketch more, draw more, experiment more.  That's the only way I'm going to find out what really floats my boat.  I know I've said that before!  Procrastination, fear, life get in the way.  This needs to become a priority.  These are from this morning, sketched while I watched the Tour de France.

Some are "random shape" creations and some are general doodles.  A few are pencil but most are done with ballpoint pen.

Baby, that's fast!

Today I drew babies from life!  Just a little perk of babysitting for me. Those little buggers sure move fast! I wasn't sketching nearly fast enough.  I'd look down for just a quick glance at my paper and look back up and the moment was gone.  I almost had to draw without looking 

at my paper!  These were done in ballpoint pen.

I missed IF!

Well, I tried but it was no use.  I missed submitting anything (again) for Illustration Friday!  The topic was "safari" and I had started sketching ideas so I'm posting the sketches even though the deadline has passed.  As you can see, I was getting a little bit hooked on giraffes.

These were all done in ballpoint pen.  

Lesson from "Lesson"

"Ever seen one of these???"

So....I got so busy with posting my Illustration Friday illustration for "Lesson" and then enjoying other artists' submissions and blogs that I forgot that I had cookies in the oven.  Oops!

Illustration Friday: "Bottled"

Another ballpoint sketch, scanned right out of the sketchbook and quickly colored.  It's all I have time for this week.  But I ended up liking it!

New ballpoint sketches

With these sketches I joined two things I've been really interested in lately:  trees and drawing with ballpoint pen.  I really like the fact that the pen can't be erased as I work, and it has the look of both pencil and crow quill pen.  And I'm getting a real kick out of making tree personalities!  I think I'm going to develop the one on the left into a submission for Illustration Friday.

A beginning

I've been wanting to explore where my illustration style can go.....sort of what it might do if nobody was looking.  Tonight I just doodled with what turned out to be a really good tool:  ballpoint pen!  It doesn't smudge (much), it doesn't bleed through the paper or make blots, and most importantly I can't erase it!  I just have to draw whatever and then there it is, blemishes and all.  This was fun;  it felt great to just doodle from my imagination.  I can't wait to keep going!