The Power of the Ballpoint Pen - An Artist’s Magic Wand

The Power of the Ballpoint Pen - An Artist’s Magic Wand

Ballpoint pen drawings are all about line and what an artist can create with it. Ballpoint pens offer some serious advantages to artists who work with them. Ballpoint pen lines are having consistent width and tone. Ballpoint drawings can be composed of dense dashes, slow contour lines, crosshatches or rambling scribbles. And if you desire some variation in line width, you can in fact achieve it, either by adjusting the pressure you apply to the pen or by simply switching between several pens of different thickness. Some are less than half a millimeter wide and can be used for the most delicate details.
They never need to be sharpened; they are lightweight, non-toxic and odorless; and many modern ballpoints are archival. Ballpoint pens glide quicker than most other drawing media, making them perfect for quick sketches. They move smoothly in all directions and can abruptly change direction. They can be used on many surfaces other than paper. Black and blue may be the most common, but ballpoints come in countless tempting colors. Further colors can be made by using a crosshatching technique, layering varying values and colors to create subtle optical combinations. Working on colored surfaces adds even more possibilities in this regard. Once a line is made, it is permanent, and for artists this can be daunting but also quite rewarding. “Mistakes” can be left alone or corrected by incorporating them into an image with a darker value or another color, exposing the artist’s creative process