Power Of The Pen

Graphite & Ballpoint Pen on Canvas

The joy of adding ink to graphite drawings.
Whenever I wanted to get darker than my 8B graphite pencil would take me, I would usually go to something even softer like charcoal or black pastel. The problem was that it would smudge and never really allow me to sharpen it to a fine point. Then I discovered that I could get a ball point pen to do everything I was trying to do with broken pieces of pastel and sanded down charcoal. My pen of choice is a medium point black Bic. There is a degree of flexibility I can get from it depending on the amount of pressure applied or how many times I go over a line. With a bit of white pastel added in, I am able to go as light as I want and as dark as I want, really fine tuning those details. It's a blast having that much control to dramatically add life to a piece. Hope you give one a try and see how it works for you. 

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