Drawing in Pen and Ink with a Quill Edu

How to draw with ink

By Artists & Illustrators | Wed sixth May 2020

Learn how to draw with ink using brushes and dip pens in this beginner's guide to the tools and medium

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Mod pens with their cocky-contained ink reservoirs accept been our chief writing tool for more than a hundred years. They are platonic for drawing when out and about, but their precursors – steel-nibbed dip pens, reed pens and quill pens – are all the same valuable within the studio setting.

Each can be used in conjunction with a wide multifariousness of inks to produce unique and varied marks. Read on to notice art tutor Jake Spicer'due south guide to ink drawing with these tools.

INK Drawing TOOLS

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Here are iv mutual tools for cartoon with ink, as well as the pros and cons of using them.

i. Dip Pens

Traditional steel-nibbed dip pens are fabricated up of a holder and an interchangeable beak. Make sure yous buy a drawing nib for maximum versatility and supercede the nibs when they habiliment out.

Dip pens with cartoon nibs requite a flowing line that varies with pressure and speed and should be cleaned of backlog ink afterwards each apply.

Fine mapping nibs which fit into smaller holders are intended for fragile line work and are not always suitable for general cartoon. Similarly, italic calligraphy nibs can make interesting marks, simply may limit your chapters to sketch.

2. Quills

Quill pens can be made at home for as an culling to the dip pen, giving a more than varied and unpredictable line, depending on how they are cut. You can brand your own quill with merely a scalpel, a pair of scissors and (ideally) a goose feather.

three. Reed Pens

Originating in ancient Egypt, reed pens are fabricated from a bulrush or length of bamboo cut in a similar fashion to the quill pen. They are sold with a diverseness of different points and requite an energetic line that is more than controlled than the quill pen and more varied than a dip pen nib. Although reed pens need to be dipped regularly to maintain a consistent flow of ink, the marks they make tin can be varied and playful with a distinctive square-ended quality.

4. Brushes

Beginners to the medium may wonder how to draw with a brush and ink. To begin with you need to choice a suitable paint brush. Simply as any pigment brush tin potentially exist used for applying ink, here are three acme picks:

A cheap, synthetic flat brush for wide, square strokes
A Japanese brush that can be angled to create a wonderfully varied range of marks
A squirrel hair mop for washes of dilute ink

Experiment with different brushes to observe out which ones you bask using. Note how much ink is held in the abdomen of the castor and how fine and consequent a mark you can make with the tip.

TYPES OF DRAWING INKS

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Selecting inks and controlling dilution are the keys to making smashing drawings. Most inks autumn into the following iii categories.

1. Modern inks

Acrylic or calligraphic inks are available in a broad range of colours and they are typically easy to clean out of brushes and dips pens. If you are using coloured inks and intend to exhibit or display the original work, brand sure you check their lightfastness rating first to ensure they won't fade too quickly.

two. Carbon inks

Black carbon inks are sold either equally blocks to exist ground, pastes to exist diluted or bottled liquids to be used neat. They encompass a diversity of Chinese and Japanese inks, including Indian Ink – originally a Chinese ink made with materials from India. It is worth noting that Indian ink contains shellac which can clog brushes and dip pens if they are not cleaned properly, whereas well-nigh other carbon inks do non.

three. Traditional inks

Historically drawing inks accept been fabricated from a diversity of natural pigments from the reddish-brownish walnut ink (made from the boiled skins of ripe walnuts) to sepia ink (extracted from dead squid and cuttlefish). Inks similar oxgall (fabricated from oak galls) and bistre (fabricated from soot and vino) can be made at home using recipes found online – bear in mind that many commercially available versions of traditional inks are merely equivalent colours rather than authentic formulations of the traditional media.

HOW TO DILUTE Cartoon INK

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A dense, dark ink straight from the bottle won't always suit your purposes. To experiment with dissimilar dilutions of ink, make a labelled tonal chart for hereafter reference.

Remember that ink tints water much more than readily than h2o dilutes ink, so in order to attain a stake tone you'll need a big quantity of water and a very pocket-sized corporeality of ink.

My nautical chart was adult using a pipette and measuring jug just yous may want to work with measurements that reverberate your process: one small jar of water to three castor loads of ink for instance.

INK Cartoon TECHNIQUES AND IDEAS

In this Indian ink study, you can see how varying the methods of application creates interesting results.

1. Brush: These marks were fabricated with a Japanese brush and very dilute ink