Ballpoint Pen Assignment



     For the first project of the semester, we were given the task to compose a drawing using only a ballpoint pen. The only two requirements were to create a dream like/ fantasy scene, and to use the entire pen. Sounds easy enough right? That's what I thought too. I didn't have much trouble coming up with my concept for the scene, as I tend to have some pretty weird dreams and thoughts on a daily basis. The first thing I did to tackle this project was to get some simple outlines in pencil, on my paper to use as guide lines for what I wanted to fill in with pen. One of my main challenges throughout this process was deciding how I wanted to go about filling in each individual piece of my composition. I wanted to use a lot of diverse patters, and mark making techniques, but also wanted everything to look coherent, and not like it was just mindlessly thrown on the page. I decided to tackle the tentacles of the Kraken first. I didn't go in with pencil before inking in my textures and patterns, which is why the very first tentacle I did looks a little different than the others. It was kind of an experimentation/ making it up as I went along type process. Filling in the head of the Kraken came later on, as I couldn't decide how I wanted to fill it in for the life of me. After the tentacles were complete I moved onto the boat, because I knew I wanted to keep the sails looking pretty simple as far as inking and mark making. After the sails of the boat I jumped over to working on the siren. I'm really not into drawing faces so this made me a little nervous, but I am more than pleased with how it turned out. After the siren was complete I worked on inking in the rest of the crystal ball. I was also a little nervous about how to go about doing this, because I was afraid it wouldn't turn out looking spherical, and just flat. However, I think it turned out well, and the crystal ball is probably my favorite part of this piece. At this point in my process it was time to decide what I wanted to do for the head of the Kraken, where I ended up just going with a gradient to go with it's tentacles. After that, it was pretty smooth sailing (haha punny) from here on out. I learned in our working critique, that my darks needed to be a lot darker, and I needed to start inking in the background. It was somewhat of a challenge trying to decide what I wanted to do, the only thing I knew I wanted for sure was an area of just dark pen. I decided on an underwater cave idea for my dark area, which really helped in using all the ink in my pen. For the rest of the background I drew inspiration from textures of coral reefs. I am very happy with how my final piece turn out, and although it was tough at times, this project really challenged me to do something I've never done before, and I'm thankful for that.

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