Position:Home>Visual Arts> What is this type of art?

The style is called pen and ink and it's what happens when you begin to apply traditional drawing techniques creatively!.

When I was in school I was surprised to hear my work described as "dry brush" since while I used the dry brush technique in most pictures the bulk of the pictures were dark with heavy use of thick hatching and I usually kept the brush wet!. Eventually I realized it was the style, not the technique they were describing!.

You can understand the style and the approach (though they use different media) by picking up and using either or both of two books: Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, by Betty Edwards and the Natural Way to Draw by Kimon Nicolaides!. A traditional drawing class will be very helpful!. If you have an art teacher, try using him or her!. There are elements which even a picture like this one has that date back to Classical Roman painting (as in the Pompeii frescoes) or before!. And they are incorporated into a very personal statement!.

It looks like it could have been done with a speedball lettering pen!. That is a pen holder, a plastic shaft into which you insert metal pen nibs, dip it in ink and draw with!. It takes years to master: blotting and bleeding are real problems!. You generally put a piece of paper under the paper you are drawing on for the bleeding and I draw a couple of tiny grids of three strokes each way to get enough ink off so the blotting is manageable!. It's slow: it takes me about a week to work a drawing as much as I will with a watercolor brush in two or three hours, but the effect can be much more effective than you will get with a more modern pen!. Do a pencil drawing underneath!.

If you want to copy the drawing, concentrate on getting the tree right!. Copy it in pencil first, and worry about making the darkest areas darkest and the lighter areas lighter more than proportion!. The figure is not an afterthought, but she is made up of the techniques which went into drawing the tree!. Once you understand the relative values of the drawing, go over it in any pen but you will find modern pens are better for writing than for drawing!. It's a good exercise if you want to do it!.

Again, this is traditional drawing done very well (smudges and all), and is usually described as "pen and ink" even if the artist posted it as mixed media!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

---

---

If you stay on the site there is an artists statement where he says that some of the marks are thumb prints!.
A lot of artists start with a basic idea of where there are going and then stay open to the serendipity of "happy mistakes!."
This artist explains that he was afraid that maybe at first he messed up, but he worked with the smudges and smears and brought them into the composition with patient work!.
To have the guts to try something that might ruin your picture and then have the power to pull it off results in something sublime and special!. GOOD LUCKWww@QuestionHome@Com

---

---

looks like it is just line art!. intricate line art!.

you can use anything to carry the ink across!. from his little blurb under the pic sounds like he was experimenting a-lot!. but as long as you have a nice heavy dark ink you can achieve the same think!. India ink works great just be careful not to get it on your cloths it doesn't was out!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

---

---

It's a pen & ink drawing!. I'm not sure what the style is called!. the swirling lines that wrap around to make an object appear 2 dimensional or as if it has depth could be loosely adapted from early Chinese etchings or wood carvings!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

---

---

That's a scan of an ink drawing!. It doesn't have any added effects!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

---

---