Pen and Ink Self Portrait

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I’ve been reading Alphonso Dunn’s book “Pen & Ink Drawing” which I checked out from the library. I used his basic technique of starting by outlining the basic shapes, then drawing in secondary shapes and the outlines of shadows, and finally filling in the shadow forms. He uses crosshatching to fill in the shadows. I used ink washes instead.

Once you put ink down on the page there is no going back. So, you better have a plan. A good method is to use an underdrawing. Most people do one in pencil, but it is always hard to erase the pencil without smudging the ink. I like to work without a pencil underdrawing. The way I did that with this drawing was to trace a photo onto overhead transparency film, backlight the film placed under my drawing paper, and use the rough tracing as an underdrawing. Here is what my tracing setup looked like.

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Here is the reference photo which I took with the front camera of my iPad.

Here is a scan of the tracing backed with white paper.

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This technique has an advantage beyond the obvious ones of making it easier to place the image properly on the page and to get accurate shapes. It helps you warm up and you get the opportunity to correct or make changes to the underdrawing as you draw the subject in ink. It gives you two tries instead of one.

I only used the light table to get outlines of the basic shapes with gray ink. After that I took the drawing off the light table and worked by looking at the photo instead of the tracing. This is what gives the drawing life. A fully traced drawing usually looks stiff.

I started inking with gray ink in a fountain pen. I then switched to another fountain pen with black ink to emphasize the darks in the eyes, glasses, ears, nose, and mouth. After that I used a brush pen filled with gray ink and a waterbrush to quickly add the shadows. Finally I used another brush pen with black ink to complete the darkest areas on the neck and shirt. The very last thing I did was to add the catchlight to the eye with a white gel pen.

Materials and tools: Fabriano 8×10 inch (20.3×25.4 cm) hot press watercolor paper, Nemosine fine nib fountain pen with Kaweco Smokey Gray ink, Platinum Plaisir fountain pen with Platinum Carbon Black ink, Pentel FRH-MN brush pen with gray ink, Kuretake #13 brush fountain pen with Platinum Carbon Black ink, and Uni-Ball Signo UM-153 white gel pen. Drawing is 6×5.5 inches (14.5×14 cm).

Jim