Well, I know, it's kinda strange to carry small sketchbook around and doodle in it with pen or pencils in our time of gadgets, tablets, electric cars et cetera.. I know but I can't help it - I just love to draw, and most of all I love to draw people. Myself, friends, family, characters from movies and TV, even imaginative persons - you name it.
For small doodles in moleskine most of the time I use ballpoint pen - I like ability to control not only thickness of line but (more important) the value of the strokes.
Ballpoint pens tend to leave nasty blotches of ink so I have a peculiar habit of smudging excess ink off the tip after every couple of strokes.
The main drawback of ballpoint pen - unability to erase - eventually became its greatest virtue. Despite these pens are cheapest tools in my arsenal they can teach highly valuable lessons - how to make right desicions straight away, how to overcome the fear of mistakes, how to find and keep likeness of person (SPOILER: it's quite hard, I fail often ¯_(ツ)_/¯)
At certain point I felt like I can draw with 2 or 3 colors (with awesome 4-in-1 pens from stationery store). Combining red and blue ink can create insteresting temperature shifts which makes illusion of skin tones.
And of course, small moleskine and pen can entertain you during long flights, I hate to sleep in airplanes so I draw all the time
So I think it's enough for the very first post here on steemit, hope it wasn't boring! If you like pen drawing like I do please share your thoughts in the comments below.
Your drawings are amazing! You certainly have acquired some skills my friend. The faces are so life like.
I was actually just on my way to the shops to buy some new ballpoints for drawing. I lost the ones I had. I’m definitely going to get one of those four-in-one coulou ones too. Just to play around with.
Thanks for giving me that extra bit of inspiration today :)
Thank you! I love to explore new pens, you never know, some pens are just awesome while others are crap. You can buy pen of your dream even on gas station
Oh wow, these are superb! I love your pen strokes! They are so expressive <3 Cant believe you did these mostly on pens, too! What precision! What skill! <3
upvotes and resteems
Are you new to steemit? Would you like to network with other artists on steem? If so, please join our discord chat: https://discord.gg/ENN8KCb
We help each other succeed here at steemit! :D
Thank you for your kind words and invitation!
Holy crap! This is awesome! :D And it´s not strange at all to carry a small sketchbook around and doodle in it with pen or pencils! It´s great imho!
I´m looking forward to see more awesome stuff from you!! Love how you sketch with ballpoint pens! Really amazing!
Thanks a lot! :)
Hi Arthur welcome to Steemit! Wow what an amazing ballpoint skills! Just stunning. Cool to see you work with different colors too! Really gives cool effects :)
Thank you! Glad you liked it :)
Wow! Fantastic sketches! I'm a proud owner of a moleskine sketchbook myself, but haven't started using it much yet! You just gave me a powerful boost of inspiration, @arthurgain! Welcome to Steemit!
I will post my welcoming message below for you, because I wish someone had told me all this stuff when I joined Steemit. Maybe you'll find it helpful, @arthurgain!
I hope that you’ll find this place friendly, and rewarding! I enjoy Steemit very much myself. I’d like to share some tips with you to help make your start here easy, and successful <3
I wish I was told several things when I was new here, like you are now. My experience is, that:
I should have read the FAQ earlier- lots of crucial & basic info there for you! Trust me, it’s worth reading!
I also wish I joined PAL- a minnow support group on Discord from the beginning (Discord is to Steemit like Messenger is to Facebook). Here’s an invite for you and here’s the registration manual- you can get a lot of support for your blog there!
I would also strongly suggest following @mikepm74 as well as @inquringtimes. These two prominent users post lots of useful and instructive posts- you may learn a lot from them to your benefit!
I also should read some comprehensive guide about how to success here on Steemit :) I can recommend: A Simple Guide to getting Started on Steem(it) and A minnow’s guide to Steemit- lots of info about money, etiquette, formatting, good strategies, bad strategies, content creation :)
The Steem Community rewards perseverance, quality original content, and social engagement! I had to be patient, write creative and elaborate posts, listen to other’s advice and leave a lot of thoughtful comments! It worked great!
I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you! Please ask me if you need any help. I’m looking forward to see more of your posts!
All the best @arthurgain,
Klaudia
Oh wow!
I've discovered another person of talent!
Welcome to Steemit and I hope you are soon reaping the rewards your skill and talent deserve.
Your drawings are just like the drawings I would love to be able to do.
Re Steemit. You've noticed you've started with a Rep of 25. At first, do not worry about making money, it is more important your raise your Rep (from 25 to 50 it goes fairly qickly, after that it goes slower and slower). You'll see upvotes earning you nothing or 1c. Doesn't matter. The upvotes themself are what raise your Rep. As Rep goes up, so do payments - unless some high-powered visitors come to your posts and upvote you.
Somehow, having seen the quality of your post, I do not think you will be worried about getting visitors.
I am going to follow you, in the hope that I see your posts in my feed.
Thank you, Arthur! I hope I will get used to the platform which seems very friendly and nice
What an amazing talent! I'm loving the faces and expressions, THE HANDS! Incredible. And I agree nothing beats the pen on paper feeling! I carry a sketchbook with me also but my attempts come nowhere close to your mastery
Thank you, much appreciated!
Excellent. Follow you, big artist
Thank you, Ksenja!
Wow !!!! Incredible ! the way you work your values and and how you create those volumes with the ball pen is really something =O i love those shapes !!
Thanks!! Your evaluation of the values is important for me :)
Not strange at all, I do it all the time, I even carry 2 sketchbooks in my backpack...just in case 😆
Is this Lora Zombie?
Really amazing drawings you have there friend, thanks for sharing them here with us 😺
Not really, Idk who it was, more like imaginative person. I like to start with some random reference and just draw loosely without paying attention to the likeness.
Thanks for your comment, much appreciated )
Ok, confess : You have a magical pen given by some fairy godmother of yours, right ? It is not possible to have such a magic talent !!! Thank you for sharing those wonderful drawings... By the way, if the magic pen is true, then, I'll buy it from you at any price ;-) !
Haha, wish I was able to confess possession of super-powers or magic wand ;) I'm affraid we cannot loot such items in real world but we definitely can boost our perks and skills by practicing. I have found that my draughtsmanship skill improved after some time spent with pen
good answer ! congratulations, you have loot my great consideration and admiration by ending this quest....
Absolutely amazing work! I've always loved using ballpoint pens as its one of my favorite mediums to use. Your attention to detail is amazing and its refreshing to see some familiar faces. Fantastic Job, I can't wait to see what you do next! Also I followed and resteemed!
Thank you so much for kind words and support!
No problem keep up the amazing work!
I've saw your drawings before somewhere, I love them! you have su much control on such a tiny space to make these portraits, keep it up!!
Thank you! )
Great work on all of these and Welcome to the Steemit Family.
The likenesses are great and they have a sense of atmosphere. I am thoroughly impressed.
I just started carrying my little sketchbook around again the other day. I have been neglecting my sketching for some time now and it is definitely showing.
I can tell by the amount of struggle drawing while working on commissions. Sketching regularly definitely makes the big projects go much smoother.
You have motivated me to sit down and do some sketching. Thanks for the motivation. I am following for more great work.
Thank you for your comment! I am really glad that my doodles can motivate, this knowledge motivates me in return!
I like your feed on steemit, great content to follow!
You're welcome and thank you
Seriously amazing. Talk about micro details!!! It ia so impressive to see the result of drawings of thosw size. I love your sketchbook!
Thank you! Small size has its virtues - for me personally it's nice that I can finish my sketch in 1 hour or so - it can perfect warm-up exersise or just mean of spending time in train or airplane.
Handsomely! I tried the pen, it's complicated, you will not erase anything, and I feel the pencil.@lena1
Thank you, Lena! It's true - unabilty to erase seems almost ridiculously if you compare pen with charcoal or pencil. For me it was a great challenge to teach myself to think before I make most crucial marks.
My favorite is the drawing of the hand, hands down.
The quality overall is very high though! Impressive!
Thank you!
Exquisit drawings. I could never get the hang of drawing with pen. I can barely even use them to write with though.
To be honest, my handwriting is total disaster, don't use it often nowadays but every time in banks or in car rental offices I feel absolutely embarrassed when I try to write down my name, address etc. Thank you for your comment! )
Hello! :)
I am @ashleykalila and I am a curator for @OCD!
This gem of a post was discovered by the OCD Team!!
Reply to this comment if you accept, and are willing to let us share your gem of a post! By accepting this, you have a chance to receive extra rewards and one of your photos in this article may be used in our compilation post!
You can follow @ocd – learn more about the project and see other Gems! We strive for transparency.
If you would like your posts to be resteemed by @ocd and reach a bigger audience, use the tag #ocd-resteem, it doesn´t have to be the first one. Every day, three posts using this tag will be chosen by our curators to be RS. Good Luck!
Also please consider voting for our witness : @ocd-witness
✨🙌
Thank you! Cool :)
Wow. Absolutely stunned. Amazing work. Instant follow!!
Thank you!
These are amazing! I absolutely love ballpoint pen drawings!
I also appreciate this:
It's so easy to look at this and think that other artists get it right all the time, first time. That being said, these are still amazing, whether you got them right after the 1's or the 100th try.
Thank you! Yes, you are right - we usually see results of endeavours, not the rejected failures. As Aristotle said: “…we are what we repeatedly do..”
Ah that's great, I like that quote, and as obvious as that quote is, it's not something that people always think of, or I guess, people aren't always willing to admit what they are or aren't. Looking forward to seeing more of your work, these are really beautiful.
Absolutely love your work, been following you on Instagram for a while too,
Welcome to steemit!
Thanks! I am going to make slightly different content here so stay tuned :)
I love your drawings!
Thank you!
when i can draw like this ...
You got a 0.90% upvote from @postpromoter courtesy of @arthurgain!
Want to promote your posts too? Check out the Steem Bot Tracker website for more info. If you would like to support the development of @postpromoter and the bot tracker please vote for @yabapmatt for witness!
这都是什么东东啊？
You got a 1.49% upvote from @allaz courtesy of @arthurgain!
Dude, how many pens do you kill for these drawings? Really good work
I never counted, man )) Most of the times when I find good pen - I buy a box. Boxes are convinient. Lol
Wow! These are amazing. It's always neat to see just how great art can be created with whatever is available. Fantastic!
Thank you! Glad you liked them
Your work is absolutely stunning! Quite inspirational as well! Creating the illusion of skin tones with just red and blue ink is something I wouldn't have guessed at first glance! I honestly thought you were using more than just those two colors. You've earned yourself a follow and an upvote!
Thank you for your comment and support! Using warm and cool colors is very traditional approach, blue+red ink seems like exaggeration of course, but look at drawings done by Old Masters - black chalk (bluish) + sanguine (red) + white. Awesome. I don't use white, tone of the paper works fine for me as whitest white.
Man, these are amazing!
Thank you :)
Resteemed by @resteembot! Good Luck!
Curious?
The @resteembot's introduction post
Get more from @resteembot with the #resteembotsentme initiative
Check out the great posts I already resteemed.
Your drawings are great. I too was amazed when I found out for the first time how good is a ball-point pen for drawing. Especially when your strokes are small and jittery like mine. most of my drawings from elementary school were done with it.
One way to use it is to build up your color spot (like layering, but not quite, without lifting the pen). That way it feels like drawing with an HB pencil
This is awesome!
Amazing work. That multicolored hand really jumps off the page. Inspired.
Thanks! Glad to hear it
Such detailed portraits of a pen! very cool sketches!
Such detailed portraits of a pen! very cool sketches!
Holy mother of jesus! This is amazing! Your work is so calculated and spontaneous at the same time. I love portrait work in pen and ink, and your work is definitely one of the best I've seen on steemit. I'm a follower already!