... I give to you...
... three ballpoint pens...
... two in/appropriate characters...
... a little souvenir.
Day 3 is inspired by my dad. Over the last year or so he's started drawing more and more, which is something he'd periodically picked up and put down over the years, but certainly since last Christmas and then Lockdown 1.0, he spends the majority of his spare time drawing. In fact most evening (morning... lunch times...) he's managed to commandeer the kitchen table, and is filling sketchbook after sketchbook at an irritatingly fast rate.
Dad's chosen medium has been black fine liner pens used in a pointillist style, but one thing he's found frustrating is how unreliable his preferred pens can be, because they run out quickly and the tips get too damaged to use. So recently he's been asking my sister and I about drawing in ballpoint pen. In particularly, how you use such an everyday medium to create something which is detailed, toned and anything by everyday.
Our answer, of course, was that ballpoint, no matter whether it's an expensive brand or the biro you "accidentally" brought home from work, is just a pen and you treat it the same way as you would a fine liner.
The biro is one of the most common and well known pens in the world. Patented in 1888 by John J. Loud, the ball and socket mechanism for the ballpoint pen was his attempt to create a writing instrument that would be able to write on rough surfaces, which fountain pens were unable to do. However this patent lapsed as the pens were too unreliable to make them commercially viable, so it wasn't until László Bíró, a Hungarian newspaper editor was in search of an alternative to the fountain pen, which required frequent refilling, leaked, and smudged and to Bíró was a frustrating waste of time.
Along with his brother Győrgy, a dentist, Bíró developed a new viscous ink formula which along with Loud's ball and socket mechanism created a east following, quick drying, leak proof pen which we've become so accustomed too, the Biro. Patents were filed in the UK (1938) and Argentina (1943) and post war quickly became the commercial icon it is now around the globe.
So, given everyone has at least one of these pens lying around their home, and we've all used one to doodle while sitting in lectures or meetings, while sitting on the phone or trying to think, it seems only reasonable to see artists embrace a mundane and commercially available medium and use it to create beautiful works of art.
My example to dad was Oscar Ukonu (a.k.a. Oscar Chuks), who creates hyper-realistic portraits using blue ballpoint pens and three basic techniques: hatching, crosshatching and scribbling.
The portraits, such as Lady with Braids, 2020, are beautiful, and detailed, but seeing the process, shown in this video from Art Insider, shows just how some simple techniques and an everyday ballpoint can create something amazing.
Even my dad, who is not a huge fan of hyper-realism, was blown away by the Ukonu's drawings after I sent him this video, and one of the things we agree on is that in this artists case, using the standard blue ballpoint instead of black, gives it an even more interesting quality.
I've shunned blue biro's for years because, when filling in forms for work, black was the only colour allowed, and I'd never have dreamt of drawing in blue pen unless it was doodling. So, in an art world where black pen drawings seem to be the norm, using the iconic blue of a ballpoint to create a realistic drawing is a little different.
Link || 38 Incredible Ballpoint Pen Portraits by Oscar Ukonu Look Like Photos by Hidrėlėy via Bored Panda
While Ukonu's drawings are hyper-realistic and dense with colour, Windi Apriani's is light and ethereal. Her particular style of crosshatching adding to the double exposure the artist has created, with seemingly sheer layers of ballpoint pen on top of a canvas washed with a little oil paint to add colour.
Remnant Light II, 2016/17
Remnant Light II (Detail), 2016/17
This is one single drawing technique (crosshatching) and it is meticulously executed. Even to point where the detailed close up shows how regular Apriani's crosshatching is, perfectly, almost ruler straight lines, that create little triangles. These almost resemble the regularly arranged dots found in halftone printing, which is used to create graduated tones with dots instead of solid colour.
The texture of Apriani's drawing is what I found so attractive. I've tried to find out more about her, but other than a couple of exhibitions and her Instagram account, I've come up short. But, her drawings are beautiful and have a completely different approach to using the classic ballpoint as a medium.
Link || Windi Apriani || Instagram
Link || 'Tracing The Subtle Signs' solo exhibition shines light on ballpoint pen art by Masajeng Rahmiasri via The Jakarta Post
Adam Riches takes a much more organic and frenetic approach to drawing with a biro. Scribbling continuous lines, layer after layer until from the chaos features begin to appear...
Riches drawings are intuitive. There's not necessarily a real person as a subject, instead his initially loose scribbles become denser, eerie shadows begin to pick out the shape of the eyes, and the portrait begin to appear. It's an incredibly free and spontaneous way to draw, but they're also really dynamic, lines swinging out around the faces creating both movement and a curve to the body and features.
I also love the fact that these are just hanging out on a blank sheet of paper. No need for a background or filler, the sketch alone is dynamic enough and Riches doesn't need to fill the page.
Link || Scribbled Portraits of Brooding Figures by Adam Riches, by Laura Staugaitis via This is Colossal
Link || The Dark, Eerie, and Beautiful Creations of Adam Riches by Hugo Seijas via Doodlers Anonymous
Link || Artist Adam Riches: 'I turned drawing doodles into a career' via BBC News
Everyone has a ballpoint pen.
I'm not saying that makes you an artist, I'm not saying that it will be the medium that lights a creative fire under you, but of all the art materials you could try, biro is probably the most readily available.
And admit it, you have a favourite pen. Maybe it's a biro, maybe it's a Sharpie or fountain pen, maybe you're into glass dip pens for calligraphy, but we all have one that we reach too because it writes nicest, make out handwriting look the neatest, or feels the best in your hand. But as snobby as we can become about our pens, when you get your hands on a good biro, it and it's innovative ball and socket design are a staple for a reason, they're good pens (most of the time), they're pretty reliable, write well, are cheap and practical.
They're not traditional "art" pens, but I dread to think how much money I've spent of fine liners over the years, only to have nibs get crushed or for the ink not to flow reliably!
So the lesson to be learnt is not to be a biro snob because art can come out of any material no matter the cost.
Merry Christmas! Day four tomorrow...
Link || Ballpoint Pen || Wikipedia
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Listening: The Holly & The Ivy - George Winston
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