Today I started a new course by Robin Hilthouse - Portraits In Pen
The lessons start out going over the difference between cavities (craters as some might call them) and bumps on skin using cross-hatching.
As much as I love good ballpoint sketch results by artists, I am not sure I will be one to really get into using ballpoints too often. I am finding right off that it takes a LOT of patience, which I am not sure I have enough for this process. Ballpoint also causes me a bit of frustration due to ink pooling at the points and creating blobs on the paper. Even wiping the pen often I find they still occur. And the other issue I'm dealing with is hand fatigue, thumb/finger tingling, and cramping in my hand. At first I thought it was just the BIC pen causing these issues but I'm quickly learning it doesn't matter which pen I use...the BIC or the Zebra. What's funny is that the Apple Pencil, regular or mechanical pencils, and fountain pens do not do this to me unless I have been non-stop for hours at a time. With the ballpoint, I'm lucky if I make it 15 to 20 minutes before having to stop and take a break.
This exercise I worked both with ballpoint in my Alpha sketchbook and also on the Ipad using Procreate. I find it less taxing on my hand working on the Ipad versus pen to paper. My lines are more consistent in value as I lay down each hatch mark. It helps that I can change the opaque value where I don't have to totally rely on pen pressure like I have to with the ballpoint. I normally have a light touch anyways but find with the ballpoint, my lines can sometimes go down darker than I want. Major plus with the Ipad.......no blobs!!!
I will continue with the course and see how my feelings are later with regards to Ballpoint. The major reason I wanted to take the course was to learn how other artists use hatching and cross-hatching which can be done in pen or pencil and even on the Ipad.
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