Half of my Inktober 2019 challenge was made with a ballpoint pen and a sharpie marker that I found just lying around the house. I drew one of my prompts on the back side of a box of cheerios too. They all work great. You don't need to spend a bunch of money to make artwork that looks good. Awesome video! -Eldon
I love ballpoint pens they are so versatile they are literally every where and they have great tones of shading and line control they are what I enjoying inking with when ever I actually do ink a drawing of mine that is
@@terrancevanliew1814 yeah I don't ink all the time I mostly use Black colored pencil but when I do ink I just enjoying using a good ballpoint every now and then
I've never seen a coloured ballpoint package which have had information about the lightfastrating printed on it. Fun to draw with them, but maybe they are not popular because they are not really archival?
I'd have to agree. I was reading about the lightfastness of different pens, and it's all over the place. Some yellows and pinks are not lightfast at all, while others are. Different brands use different ink sources for each color, mostly from China, so pens aren't consistent with their pigments. It's not as fine a medium as, say, watercolors or colored pencils, so maybe that's why, too.
@@MDCampbell That and it's a very time consuming medium. Fine for sketching or random gimmicks. The reason is similar to, why stippling isn't a more popular technique among sane people.
I personally know an artist who occasionally uses ballpoint pens to create magnificent portraits. I'm amazed at how he can produce such work since I've never considered ballpoint pens of being capable of producing quality illustrations
I mostly used ballpens this Inktober. The one thing I did for shadows is to use the complementary or analogous color. For instance, I used green to darken the red, and a hint of orange/pink to give it accent. The complement for purple is tricky, since there's no yellow. I just used a light green pen and an orange pen to make somewhat of a yellow. The brand I'm mostly using is Faber-Castell, and their orange somewhat leans towards yellow. The one peeve I have with ballpoint pens is filling out large backgrounds, and my impatience can make it a hurdle. So, markers are a next step.
Alex Yorim some excellent insight worth taking note of. I do love playing with accent colors, but didn’t get too deep into it with this piece since it was an Inktober drawing and time was severely limited! Thank you for sharing!!
I should have added this sooner, but I have a yellow pen from a locally-made pen brand. Why I have not used it a lot is not because it gave out a ochre yellow, but because it bled and gave out stains between the pages long after I drew it.
I love that your video is called 'why they're not taken seriously' but you give them a pretty serious treatment in experimenting with and comparing them :) The piece at the end was great!! Ball points are my favorite medium, for reasons all of cost, accessibility, laziness with clean-up, permanence, etc (I am always hunting for good, smooth ones, especially with a little bit finer of a tip), although I usually just stick with black. But seeing the different colors you brought out, playing with the alcohol effects, and the good advice about dabbing away excess ink is very exciting, and in fact inspires me to go even deeper down my ball-point rabbit hole :b ! I agree that they can be annoyingly inconsistent at times, but if I can track down a good pen, that's not much of an issue. Plus, I get a certain satisfaction out of being able to create more variation with lines than would be expected out of a ball-point, and recently since I've been getting better at mapping out forms before actually drawing, it's been a ton of fun making super light sketches with them! You'd think a ball-point sketch would look worse and more obvious under a drawing than a pencil sketch, but somehow I feel like I have more control and am able to cover the sketch more neatly than when I use a pencil. Go figure.. maybe it's because with the pen, I KNOW that if I press a little too hard, I'm screwed -- but with a pencil, I drop my guard because 'eh, I can always erase, and pencil is so light anyway,' and then I get an ugly line carved into the paper that I can't get rid of XD Woo! All in all, leaving this video ignited about my ball-point pen passion :3
Wow, such great feedback No One, thank you for taking the time to discuss the topic in with such thought and passion! I know exactly what you mean about having more control. Even in the piece for the video, once I got it going, I just felt like I was able to move a lot more fluidly than with other mediums. Ballpoint pens are plain & simply FUN. And while I know what you mean about the laziness with cleanup, that's actually such a major advantage, right? With my dip pens, there's a good 10-15 minute cleanup after, and a few months ago, I tipped a bottle of purple ink, spilling it all over my desk. Let's just say that cleanup took a bit longer than normal! LOL!! Thank you again for the kind words and such generous conversation. Glad you're passion for pens has been ignited! Cheers! ~ Mark
i did one of my final art projects in high school with ball point pens. it was all fun and games til my red pen ran out and i had to hunt down another one of the exact same brand to keep the colour consistant
I did Inktober this year with a black Bic ballpoint. I love them, they are cheap and easily available. As to the missing yellow, Bic sells a neon yellow in Europe, if you are willing to order from Amazon Global but that is expensive. The only yellow I have found in the American market is in the Amazon Basics multi-color set, it is something of a yellow-ochre, but it has its uses.
One thing thats why ballpoint pen is not so popular is that it is not usually used as a medium in drawing. But it is one of the medium that is very challenging and fun to use. I love drawing a portrait using ballpoint pe.
When I discovered Inkjoy pens I was thrilled lol. They’re smoother flowing. I like to leave one on my art table under the light. When they’ve warmed up a bit they’re even a bit more buttery. The Inkjoys are less prone to blobbing too. It’s been impossible to find the fine tips lately though. I don’t like writing with other pens. Well, except for the .05 Micron on super smooth paper. But they’re too expensive for daily writing.
I don't like Inkjoys because there's no value difference you can do with them because they're gel pens, its all the darkest value. Gel pens are water-based and that's why they are more smooth but that also means that they aren't waterproof and they bleed like crazy when water touches them (edit: fixed a word)
I totally agree! My mom told me that one time she had drawn a realistic portrait for an art class assignment and the teacher gave her a lower grade just because it was made with a ballpoint pen and not a pencil. Also, I used to draw with ballpoint pens ever since I started drawing in my early childhood but I had to break that habit in middle school because the teacher would say we were "unprepared" for his class if we didn't have a pencil and a sheet of paper. Outside of his classes I still doodled with pens in my notebooks, haha! However, in highschool I started collecting my art in sketchbooks and officially replaced ballpoint pens with pencils, explored different mediums, techniques, etc. I did some Inktober pieces with ballpoints but it felt like I didn't use them to their fullest potential. I will try them out again soon, thanks a lot for the inspiration!
Thank you for sharing your experiences, Viki. That's wild about your mom's work! Not right! And as far as some teachers criticizing ballpoint pen, I had the same problem when I was young. My middle school teacher told me not to use ballpoint pen because it was a "bad habit." I laughed, because when did being creative - no matter what tool we use - become a bad habit? lol! Cheers! :)
bic cristal pens are my absolute favorite because after drying theyre waterproof!! i havent tried EVERYTHING, but ive tried things that have lied and more. microns are waterproof of course but i love ballpoint so much more bcs it handles like a pencil with range of value which is super natural to me. theyre also very accessible so its easy to recommend them
I love ballpens, I always sketch with them when I'm on the phone, and sometimes I'll get some good ideas down on paper. I work as an artist/designer and I never underestimate a ballpen! 🤪👌
This video is just what I needed, thank you =) Yeah I agree with the issue on the ink blobs in using ballpoint pens. It does take time to wipe the blob stuff off so the drawing and shading momentum gets killed off. Also highlight planning is a bit of a pain, but the results can be just as wonderful as using dip pens or other ink-depositing tools so I will do my best in making an output from ballpoint pens. I know of people who mostly use these and their works are really good so I won't lose hope yet =)
Thank you, May Cuaresma, for sharing your thoughts and time to watch. There's some amazing ball point pen work out there! Don't lose hope, ever, and always know that any work you create is another step toward a more positive experience on your creative journey. At least, that's how I see it for myself. :)
I loooove drawing with ballpoint pens! Really enjoy the texture that you get with them, especially doing hatching for shading, it looks really cool to me
I love using these pens but hate the glob and smear! This is a great video and you pointed out some great tips that will help me go forward with using this type of media! Thank you so much!! 😁
They are very versatile and great for use in many facets of writing and creativity. However, I do not recommend using watercolors to color code your notes. hehe! :)
Hi, Mark! I have always loved to draw with ball-point-pens, especially at school (as you said, that`s what we had back then :) I love your illustration. You are always such an inspiration. Thank you very much for reminding me :) Greetings from Slovenia, Josi
There was a pen that was cheap and i think itwas a ballpoint pen but it had a fine tip. I think it was called rsvp or some shit. But it was my go to pen in highschool or for writing. Alotta the asian kids used them. They had the best pens, markers everything
Nice drawing! I didn't know about the trick with the alcohol, will try that sometime. The only downside I can think of for ballpoint pens is that in the long run, your drawings will look like they are bleeding? I'm not sure how to explain this but I used to make a bunch of illustrations and comics when I was at school and used ballpoint pens together with watercolor pencils. Most of my drawings nowadays from early 2000s have lost it's somewhat crips look, the ink looks feathered which makes me sad. I would recommend scanning the drawings just in case because you don't know how they would stand in time.
Many artists do use ballpoint pens and create gorgeous work with them. As you can see in this comment section, many people use them. So it does seem like ballpoint pens are indeed taken seriously by a bunch of people. I'm one of them.
Ballpoint pens are one of my favorite ways to ink, however they don't play nice with my markers. I'm like you, I grew up using them as well. The inconsistency in quality is what eventually drove me to Microns, but this video tempts me to give ballpoint another try. (I love taking the little ball off the end of a new pen, too!!) BTW, fun fact-- the Frenchman who invented the Bic pen was actually named Bich. The product name was changed for... obvious reasons.
For me, it is easier to draw with a Pentel R.S.V.P. pen on smooth paper. And you can mask smudges or make highlights with a gelly role (or a Pentel Milky Pop). I also like that you can put watercolor on it and ink (without alcohol) without altering it. The fact that it's not lightfast annoys me a lot. I have microns, but I don't use them often because I find pens more pleasant for making nuances.
Have you seen the work of Andrea Joseph? Her drawings are the first ballpoint pen drawings I’ve seen since High School (when my lab partner, Mike Zika, used to draw monsters with his wide point Bic pen). Andrea renders beautifully with various colors. I first found her zines on Etsy.
Your result is truly stunning! I love how you layered the strokes to create depth :) I also used to like working with ballpoint pens in highschool, but what always bothered me most were the random "blobs" you would sometimes get with really cheap ones. I clearly remember working on one piece, spending a lot of time crosshatching and right in the middle of a line the pen suddenly "spat out" a huge drop of ink - and it kept doing that, thus ruining the piece :/ Part of me wants to give them a chance again, but if I see that I can get similar results with more reliable pens like Microns, it just makes me feel safter to stick with them.
There are some people making serious art with ballpoint pens, including a guy who does startlingly naturalistic pictures of farmyard animals using an optical mixing technique ... forget his name. I guess you have to be pretty keen on hatching, but it's like anything else - if you put in the time and effort you'll get results. I very much like the orange bodied Bics, beloved by industrial designers for the surprising sensitivity of line quality, and buy them by the box. For my money the form factor is ideal because they're so much like a pencil. You can write a creditable, minimally shaded Spencerian with them if you have a light touch. Definitely an underrated species of writing / drawing instrument.
Oh my goodness !! I’m so glad I stayed till the end of this video.. I was thinking that with regards to your repetition of cheap, cheap, cheap, it was going to be a total wipe out on the ole ball point pen. I was surprised by the 180 turnaround & demo of how awesome drawings can definitely be made with ball point pens !! I am totally inspired !!! Thanks for the video 👈🏼
I only use 'uni-ball power tank' ball point pens for years now. I've drawn with ballpoint pens all through my school time and they're still my go to tool for doodling. And somehow I became really picky with them after picking up this one. It doesn't smear or clump (like cheap ball pens tend to do), is very pressure sensitive and somehow glides over paper better then any others I tried. My only objection is that I use them up pretty quick, so I need to buy refills regularly. Which is okay, since they aren't that expensive. Once I couldn't find refills and tried out every single ball point pen in an artist supply store and was like 'nope, doesn't do it for me'. So yeah, I really recommend those.
THANK you for talking about this issue. also, i am one of the people in the ball point club and i'm proud to say i've always been. they're cheap: not heavy on your spendings. they're so many varieties: and you can try them all (so cheap!!), and everyone has different ballpoint tastes. i for once hate fine points. they're pretty much disposable but the trick is: they age so well. and i choose to spare some pens for how old and beautiful their ink has become in maybe 5 or 6 years, so i don't use them as often just to keep them around. it's a fun hobby just as much as fountain pens and expensive aquarelles, and for super cheap!! but remember to dispose of the plastic properly. most parts are recyclable if not all of them! bonus; HOTEL/SOUVENIR PEN FINDINGS
What a wonderful reply, Ella Stone! Thank you for taking your time to post feedback and yes, I agree with everything you mention. I wish I had mentioned the recyclability of the parts, as I hadn't thought of that - what a great "point." And yes, I am an avid collector of hotel pens. In fact, right now I'm looking at the beautiful orange and white click pen I got from the famous Hotel del Coronado (The Del), which I stayed at two years ago, not knowing it was a haunted hotel! YIKES! But, the pen is SO smooth and fine, it's hard to believe it's a cheap hotel pen! lol! Thank you again and hope you are well! ~ Mark
@@MDCampbell gotta love the "point" pun-also i hope this one hotel's pen quality was enough to make it worth having monsters under your bed at night! 😂 thank you for replying! i hope we can all appreciate ballpoint pens more, they deserve it.
I love ball point pens so much for both writing and drawing. In elementary and middle school we were forced to write with fountain pens and I hated the damn things so much, ball point pens fit the pressure I apply and my handwriting so much better. The black BICs at 10:00 are my favourites, so smooth once you've used them a little bit.
Thanks for the video! When I followed artclasse we had to make a drawing with a 4-colour Bic every day. That's how I got to appreciate the ballpoint pen and discovered e.g. how to mix colours!
Being left handed using a ball point pen makes it work differently and causes the ink to ball up more on the bottom. Apparently they are meant to be pulled not pushed while writing :) random fact of the day :)
Interesting, when I draw with left hand I am drawing right to left so don't have this problem. While drawing with right hand I am doing the opposite drawing from left to right. I guess I am wierdo 😂
thank you so much for this video. i am so stupid that i never thought to use ball point pens but you inspired me. just finished few sketches now and i feel so happy, got the rubbing alcohol too. just what i needed today, recovering from a virus and inktober. thank you again, love your work
i use ballpoint for all of my illustrations. they’re cheap smooth and are quite water resistance so i don’t have to worry about line art smudging when using watercolors/ goache
Last year's inktober I used a ballpoint for inking my watercolor illustrations, since I was starting with art again, and didn't have any waterproof ink. I checked them again a few months later and they all look as if the lines had been blurred. They were totally fine before, I really don't know if it was an effect of the water (which is weird, since they were already dried) or maybe the paper. All I know is I'm glad I took pictures of them before this happened.
On the contrary, even if ballpens aren't taken seriously by most people, there were artists who actually used ballpoint pens in their artworks. Examples of them are Andy Warhol, Il Lee, Lennie Mace, James Mylne, and a lot more.
Lennie Mace YES!!! I knew Lennie casually through mutual friends back when he lived in NYC and I attended several of his shows (I think he's mostly living in Japan nowadays). Lennie's work was not only beautiful because of his technique with ballpoint pens, but his actual drawings were beautiful, elegant, and stylized, while also retaining a lively "cartoon" quality. He has a website, (which is not updated very often, to my knowledge: www.lenniemace.com/) Here is a link to his ballpoint rendering of da Vinci's MONA LISA. It was commissioned by Pilot Pen company, I believe. I saw it on exhibit: it's fairly large, (larger than da Vinci's original): commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mona_a%27la_Mace_in_ballpoint_pen_by_Lennie_Mace_1993_(shown_cropped).jpg
@@luciusirving5926 honestly i dont think so, i feel like they have less color variety and dry out quicker (also i am op i just had to get a new account)
Bic brand comes in 3 widths, Fine is about .5mm, the regular cheapies are usually around .7mm, and don't the Injoys have a 1mm or 1.4 mm? To me the tip size is what matters. I bought the colored ones for work actually. Im an artist trapped as an accoutant, so I color code all my notes, labels etc. LOL!
This was actually pretty informative and even uninspiring to use ball point pens and knowing the down sides of it I can know what I'm getting myself in to. Now I'm off to Walmart to buy a few and see what I can create. Thanks you for the video 🤘
Funny, I bought a couple of packages since this video just to keep at work. I love having them on hand and find I use them more frequently during the day for routine tasks, than at home for drawing. They make my Post It notes really pop! ;)
Great video and awesome drawing! I saw below someone mentioning they might not be popular because they're not lightfast, could be a reason. I often use a Bic black ballpoint pen to sketch and do linearts, it's waterproof and works well with watercolour. I also use the Bic one for smudgy alcohol marker sketches.
Thank you for your kind thoughts, Shesvii! I really appreciate that. I often forget that some folks consider lightfastness to be a deal breaker, but in my experience, I don't know many people who are hanging ball point pen artwork on the wall in sunlit rooms for years. That's not to dismiss the concern, because it is truly legit, but it is just that most folks I know usually draw in sketchbooks with ball point pen, so it's not usually a major concern. But, I can see how it definitely would be for some. Stay well! ~ Mark
@@MDCampbell thanks for the reply! I definitely agree with you, ballpoint drawings are mostly sketchbook material. However, I know lots of artists that prioritize lightfastness. Anyway as you said, the fact that they're cheap makes them look less fancy and that also drives many people away.
They don't make those anymore?! I'd better hang on to the one I have sitting around, then. They're great for super neat small writing, or fine line drawings.
The great thing about these pens is that you tend to have one around somewhere, and, with a bit of practice, you can do some cool drawings with it. Pretty much anyone can afford a basic BIC pen, still there no excuse not too give this a go.
Oh thats wierd. A regular Pilot or Bic should work. I often use the ones that you get for free by companies, no brand and cheap ones. Do you let it dry in between? Did you use a gelpen? they can sometimes look like a regular ballpointpen but have the smallest text that says it is a gelpen.. I have tried a bunch of ballpointpens and maybe one or two was smearing.. ☺️ I always test pens in beforehand so I can work with the one I like the most. Hope this was any help! ❤️
I love multiliners but I always try to keep a colored ballpoint in my kit. I like them because you can get those really light lines. So you can do a sketch in them and finish it by darkening the lines you like without the real need to erase. I love doing studies in them too, especially when I have multiple colors. I like the Bic fine point. They don't blob as much. But you are right. All the greens are blah.
I think the main reason is that the regular ones are not archival at all. My notes from high school from about 20 years ago really faded a lot. I just threw those out a month ago because my parents were moving house and it was something I noticed. You can get archival ball point pens though and I just bought some of those the other day. Big warning: don’t put fixative for pencil on it. That has alcohol in it apparently and will bleed blue like in your demo. Ruined a rather nice drawing like that the other day, ugh. I just didn’t cover it up while trying to protect some pencil stuff on the same page and that was a nasty surprise 😬🤦♀️
Hi Mark love your sketch piece I guess to be the coated tongue I trying to learn to use pens more in my doodling and my sketching I always been a pencil person I'm more from artist such as yourself and DeMoose here on UA-cam thank you so much for sharing
One of my favorite artists, France Van Stone - she does AMAZING things with ball point pen. Her ball point pen portraits sort of remind me a bit of the look of da Vinci's sketchbooks. If you haven't seen her pen art, please check it out. She is so talented.
Thank you, Rob L! Funny, when I grew up, there were only about three options for cheap ball point pens. We're fortunate to live in a time where options are plentiful and availability is at our fingertips! Cheers! :)
I’m very disappointed in you Mark. You asked us to tell you why we disliked a video which I didn’t nor did I like it but I told you how I feel about digital art and it went totally ignored by you. I realize you need it for your job I’m not dense but you could have at least replied. It just goes to show you are like every other UA-cam artist you can’t take criticism at all. I may unsubscribe after a few years of being a subscriber. Just because I feel the way I do it doesn’t mean I am right it is just how I feel. Digital art is just too perfect and art should have little flaws but again this is just how I feel and not how everyone does. I had a friend that was on my Instagram and her art is all digital all flawless and all quite boring to look at so I stopped following her. Yet my art she didn’t even like or comment. Snobbery if you ask me. Anyway have a nice day and I may not stop by anymore feeling very slighted at this point.
Recently I ordered a Bic color set. I started drawing portraits and it’s quite challenging to get skin tones, but I’m making progress. Lately, I’ve been looking for a grey ink ballpoint but it seems they don’t make them - I’ve only found grey in gel inks. If any anybody knows where to get one, please let me know. Thanks for the video.
My university sells these coloured pen sets from Staedtler that I use (complete amateur though). I wasn't aware that ballpoints aren't used for colouring however. I like the 20 pack, because it provides a lot of variety (multiple blues, greens, pinks, grays, two different browns, black, and the rainbow).
This video is very good! And just a bit of a side note: I can *barely* hear your voice over the outro-music at the end there, tho it could be my audio settings...
on the subject of ballpoint pens: have you tried out Pilot's FriXion Erasable pens? I find them to be really nice and they erase better than PaperMate. as for using pens for lining my drawings, i actually prefer either PaperMate Flair or UniBall Air. i find them easier to use and much more affordable than micon's etc..
I love using ballpoints. I use them for 90% of inked art. My favourite is the Bic medium with a 1.0mm ball. I use them for line art, shading (like a pencil), hatching, coloring in areas. Not the greatest for stippling, but it does work. Almost all of my Inktober2019 illustrations were ballpoint.
I developed much of my drawing skills in my youth using cheap ballpoint pens! And one thing I discovered back then - if you use the ballpoint pen on glossy surface paper, you will have far more control over line thickness and the ink applies smoother on the paper too.
I really enjoyed this video 😊. I also think that “ artist” don’t use them because there not archival I also love doodling with it also teaches me as a new person to art how shade and work in layers. And to practice with them cross hatchlings ect. Density tone values I have seen some gorgeous work with just a bic crystal clear blue pen it fascinates me. I am even using it to catch up on my inktober ( I was sick 😷 a few days my first granddaughter was born ( I took your advice of this is for me don’t have a mental break down if your not done in 31 days) made this year way more fun 😃. I enjoy uni ball pens they have color ones all being on the dark side of black with undertones of these color hues. I also like gear there comfy And lol this one I picked up from the dollar tree Thanks again for a great video.
I love colored ballpoint pens for sketching. Limited colors force you to learn and so dies your inability to erase those initial sketch lines. I have a difficult time keeping my marks light because of joint issues - sketching with pens really helps me stay mindful of my line weight. Gooey ink globs are evil though. Just... ugh. And I would also really love a yellow pen. It’s such a bummer.
I thought about using ballpoint pens for Inktober because I love the drawings that Bobby Chiu creates with just a ballpoint pen but I tried briefly and got frustrated with the blobs of ink so I decided to use fineliners, brush pens and alcohol markers and leave the ballpoint pen for a time when I could try it without getting frustrated by it. I used to doodle with them in school as well but haven't used them for years.
Ballpoint is a good transition between pencil and fountain/dip pens. People just need to control the pressure with their hands, you can do both sketching and shading with that bad boy
I've done some neat stuff with ballpoint pens, but I definitely lack the skills required to do the kind of shading you did here! I mostly work with pencils and graphite sticks, oil pastels, and water-based brush markers. I'm working on refining my skills with pencil crayons, and eventually I'll get back to painting--most of my experience has been with watercolours, but I have dabbled in acrylics and would like to try my hand at oils someday.
The most I use ballpoint pens for is sketching, I don't use them for anything else. But if you have a Daiso near you, they sell a multi-pen with yellow and it's like a dollar fifty.
I do a lot of drawing with ball point pens on copy paper at my desk... when you have 5 minutes to draw something you use what you have! I like them... I don't love them because I like a BLACK ink and ball point pens don't go really dark but they work for when they are there.
i personally use ballponit pens everyday as a part of my en plain air set. its fun to do a water color with a different colored pen on toned paper. i do that along with a few splashes of watercolor a white gel pen for highlights is all i need for a nice landscape sketch. never really cared about highlights in my water colors... just dab in with the gel pen or a white marker or white gouache.. i might care if these where works to sell. doing the linework in a different color is fun, example a fire hydrant done in red with an orange or yellow pen where the light hits it, instead of boring black line work. it also has the benefit of making your travel art set extremely light, when compared to a set up for oils or acrylics... anything to save the old back lol. plus you can take it on the plane while everyone else is dealing with lugage and tsa and your getting a coffee (assuming you have a watercolor set with cakes instead of tubes... they always give me a hard time with the tubes).
I think they are quite popular for sketching but I've never seen anyone do ballpoint pen commissions... they are not lightfast and the ink blob thing doesn't make them reliable enough I guess. I have one ballpoint pen that I really love and I try to only use it for birthday cards. It hardly clogs and has a finer point than other pens. Plus the ink is very dark. I've used it for a few drawings but it seems like such a waste as I haven't found any suitable replacement.
I use those bic pens to sketch with primarily when I am trying not to rely on any sort of erasing or being too picky about even just warm up sketches -- but you're right, I think -- the cheapness and minor cons of the pens/that ink sort of makes me feel like I wouldn't want to do a final piece in that medium. Hence why I use them for sketching instead~
I buy the Coletto style from the Dollar Tree. It's a knock off but you get 8 different colors in one pen. Then you can take just that and a sketchbook with you. Handy if you enjoy traveling light. :)
Interesting video. Is there any difference between "ball point" and "roller ball" pens? I've never been able to find a definitive answer. Like you, I grew up using ball points. These days, my favorite for writing and drawing is a Platinum Carbon fountain pen, extra fine point. I love the flowing ink and feel of the nib on paper.
I haven’t used ball point pens for anything more than sketches and doodles and maybe even some studies in years in terms of drawing. I use them a lot as a server and a writer but as an artist I find they’re mostly useful for doodles and gesture drawings. They can help build line confidence if you draw strictly with pens, but that can be any pen tbh.
I pretty much learned how to draw almost exclusively with ball point. Once people said I was "good" I spent the money on proper graphite and fineliners. I might go give them another go now, should be interesting to see how it turns out 10 years later.
Any tips on how to get the ink flowing again on a ball point pen that hasn’t been used for a while? I have a lot of pens that I’d like to use or donate but can’t get them to work again even though they are full of ink.
I'm not a huge fan of ball point pens. However I purchased a multi-color pack of PaperMate InkJoy 100 1.0mm bold tip ball point pens a while back. They changed my low opinion of ball point pens. I've done a few experiments with them. After taking some pictures in good sun light, tomorrow I'll link to some images of my experiments. Suffice it for now to say that their ink lines can handle being colored over with water based marker, like 1 to 3 layers unaffected. And I can get two line sizes which are obviously different thicknesses. Ball point pens generally like smooth paper best of all. I've been using them with Rhodia pads and marker paper. They'll work on textured paper, but one should expect that they'll need to go over some of their lines again as the hills and valleys in such papers will cause some skipping and possibly fading. In any case I've found that having a couple of sheets of paper under the sheet I'm working on makes writing/drawing smoother and cuts down on skipping and fading. The padding underneath ,rather than a hard surface, helps a lot. One could also get a soft writing board to do the job. JetPens and Amazon have them. The tips on the PaperMate pens with pull off caps actually does come to a finer, sharper tip than the click pens do. Their tips are also a bit easier to see when in contact with the paper. As I said earlier, tomorrow I'll share some images of what I've found in my experience with the PaperMate InkJoy ball point pens.
Of course you should try. How will you know if they are your jam or not otherwise? For me, I try everything I can - it's the only way to learn what works for me and what doesn't.
Personally I like the plain bic pens and the bic multi pen. I find that the ink doesn't glob up hardly at all. The problem with ballpoint pens that advertise "smooth writing" or anything like that typically have ink that globs up too much. The consistency comes from your hand and technique. Look at Nicholas Sanchez and Frank Cho, they do amazing work with just plain bic pens. Idk if people really dislike them but I know that people overlook the pen and are too impatient to use them. Also a suggestion if i may, play the outro music after you're finished talking or lower the volume of it.
I like ballpoint pens. I drew a really cool Silver Chariot and the shading looks pretty noice. I probably wouldn’t use them for serious art yet because I don’t have skill but they’re fun.
Half of my Inktober 2019 challenge was made with a ballpoint pen and a sharpie marker that I found just lying around the house. I drew one of my prompts on the back side of a box of cheerios too. They all work great. You don't need to spend a bunch of money to make artwork that looks good. Awesome video! -Eldon
Thank you so much, Art of Eldon!
Number 1 Reason:
We used them in school and I have strong speculations that alot of us didn't care about them in school either.
I speculate that most of us didn't care much about school, in general! lol! :)
I love ballpoint pens they are so versatile they are literally every where and they have great tones of shading and line control they are what I enjoying inking with when ever I actually do ink a drawing of mine that is
They don't work well over pencil in my (admittedly limited) experience.
@@terrancevanliew1814 yeah I don't ink all the time I mostly use Black colored pencil but when I do ink I just enjoying using a good ballpoint every now and then
And they're also waterproof, my favorite thing about oil based ink. Works really well with water color !
Best answer
Ballpoint pens are basically ink crayons in the art world
That's awesome! Thank you! lol! :)
Crayon art is next-level
True true
Huh!?
Yes they are!!
i love shading with ballpoint, there is something so relaxing about it to me
I've never seen a coloured ballpoint package which have had information about the lightfastrating printed on it. Fun to draw with them, but maybe they are not popular because they are not really archival?
I'd have to agree. I was reading about the lightfastness of different pens, and it's all over the place. Some yellows and pinks are not lightfast at all, while others are. Different brands use different ink sources for each color, mostly from China, so pens aren't consistent with their pigments. It's not as fine a medium as, say, watercolors or colored pencils, so maybe that's why, too.
@@MDCampbell That and it's a very time consuming medium. Fine for sketching or random gimmicks. The reason is similar to, why stippling isn't a more popular technique among sane people.
I personally know an artist who occasionally uses ballpoint pens to create magnificent portraits. I'm amazed at how he can produce such work since I've never considered ballpoint pens of being capable of producing quality illustrations
I have some stuff - www.JakesPenArt.com
I mostly used ballpens this Inktober.
The one thing I did for shadows is to use the complementary or analogous color. For instance, I used green to darken the red, and a hint of orange/pink to give it accent.
The complement for purple is tricky, since there's no yellow. I just used a light green pen and an orange pen to make somewhat of a yellow. The brand I'm mostly using is Faber-Castell, and their orange somewhat leans towards yellow.
The one peeve I have with ballpoint pens is filling out large backgrounds, and my impatience can make it a hurdle.
So, markers are a next step.
Alex Yorim some excellent insight worth taking note of. I do love playing with accent colors, but didn’t get too deep into it with this piece since it was an Inktober drawing and time was severely limited! Thank you for sharing!!
A good complement for purple is brown (which is pretty much what you get when you mix orange and green).
I should have added this sooner, but I have a yellow pen from a locally-made pen brand. Why I have not used it a lot is not because it gave out a ochre yellow, but because it bled and gave out stains between the pages long after I drew it.
I love that your video is called 'why they're not taken seriously' but you give them a pretty serious treatment in experimenting with and comparing them :) The piece at the end was great!!
Ball points are my favorite medium, for reasons all of cost, accessibility, laziness with clean-up, permanence, etc (I am always hunting for good, smooth ones, especially with a little bit finer of a tip), although I usually just stick with black. But seeing the different colors you brought out, playing with the alcohol effects, and the good advice about dabbing away excess ink is very exciting, and in fact inspires me to go even deeper down my ball-point rabbit hole :b !
I agree that they can be annoyingly inconsistent at times, but if I can track down a good pen, that's not much of an issue. Plus, I get a certain satisfaction out of being able to create more variation with lines than would be expected out of a ball-point, and recently since I've been getting better at mapping out forms before actually drawing, it's been a ton of fun making super light sketches with them!
You'd think a ball-point sketch would look worse and more obvious under a drawing than a pencil sketch, but somehow I feel like I have more control and am able to cover the sketch more neatly than when I use a pencil. Go figure.. maybe it's because with the pen, I KNOW that if I press a little too hard, I'm screwed -- but with a pencil, I drop my guard because 'eh, I can always erase, and pencil is so light anyway,' and then I get an ugly line carved into the paper that I can't get rid of XD
Woo! All in all, leaving this video ignited about my ball-point pen passion :3
Wow, such great feedback No One, thank you for taking the time to discuss the topic in with such thought and passion! I know exactly what you mean about having more control. Even in the piece for the video, once I got it going, I just felt like I was able to move a lot more fluidly than with other mediums. Ballpoint pens are plain & simply FUN. And while I know what you mean about the laziness with cleanup, that's actually such a major advantage, right? With my dip pens, there's a good 10-15 minute cleanup after, and a few months ago, I tipped a bottle of purple ink, spilling it all over my desk. Let's just say that cleanup took a bit longer than normal! LOL!! Thank you again for the kind words and such generous conversation. Glad you're passion for pens has been ignited! Cheers! ~ Mark
Love it. Brought back memories of me drawing in high school all the time.
You use what you have.
i did one of my final art projects in high school with ball point pens. it was all fun and games til my red pen ran out and i had to hunt down another one of the exact same brand to keep the colour consistant
The drawing at the end is so cool. I love the style. You always make me think of things I’d like to draw as well. Great video!
Thank you, again, Emily Love! I'm thrilled you enjoy these videos! I'm very lucky!
@@MDCampbell You’re very welcome 😊
I did Inktober this year with a black Bic ballpoint. I love them, they are cheap and easily available. As to the missing yellow, Bic sells a neon yellow in Europe, if you are willing to order from Amazon Global but that is expensive. The only yellow I have found in the American market is in the Amazon Basics multi-color set, it is something of a yellow-ochre, but it has its uses.
One thing thats why ballpoint pen is not so popular is that it is not usually used as a medium in drawing. But it is one of the medium that is very challenging and fun to use. I love drawing a portrait using ballpoint pe.
When I discovered Inkjoy pens I was thrilled lol. They’re smoother flowing. I like to leave one on my art table under the light. When they’ve warmed up a bit they’re even a bit more buttery. The Inkjoys are less prone to blobbing too. It’s been impossible to find the fine tips lately though. I don’t like writing with other pens. Well, except for the .05 Micron on super smooth paper. But they’re too expensive for daily writing.
I don't like Inkjoys because there's no value difference you can do with them because they're gel pens, its all the darkest value. Gel pens are water-based and that's why they are more smooth but that also means that they aren't waterproof and they bleed like crazy when water touches them (edit: fixed a word)
I have a sketchbook just for ball points so that i cant erase anything. Plus a highlighter to go around sketches i want to remake one day.
I totally agree! My mom told me that one time she had drawn a realistic portrait for an art class assignment and the teacher gave her a lower grade just because it was made with a ballpoint pen and not a pencil.
Also, I used to draw with ballpoint pens ever since I started drawing in my early childhood but I had to break that habit in middle school because the teacher would say we were "unprepared" for his class if we didn't have a pencil and a sheet of paper. Outside of his classes I still doodled with pens in my notebooks, haha! However, in highschool I started collecting my art in sketchbooks and officially replaced ballpoint pens with pencils, explored different mediums, techniques, etc. I did some Inktober pieces with ballpoints but it felt like I didn't use them to their fullest potential. I will try them out again soon, thanks a lot for the inspiration!
Thank you for sharing your experiences, Viki. That's wild about your mom's work! Not right! And as far as some teachers criticizing ballpoint pen, I had the same problem when I was young. My middle school teacher told me not to use ballpoint pen because it was a "bad habit." I laughed, because when did being creative - no matter what tool we use - become a bad habit? lol! Cheers! :)
I like that the black bics are waterproof when dry. Really great for quick sketches that I can paint with watercolor later.
Bic Cristal is the best ball point EVER!! The Extra Bold is so smooth and dark ink.
I've seen ballpoint pen artworks that had crazy amounts of detail. One of them had the hair drawn to look realistic it was crazy.
bic cristal pens are my absolute favorite because after drying theyre waterproof!! i havent tried EVERYTHING, but ive tried things that have lied and more. microns are waterproof of course but i love ballpoint so much more bcs it handles like a pencil with range of value which is super natural to me. theyre also very accessible so its easy to recommend them
I love ballpens, I always sketch with them when I'm on the phone, and sometimes I'll get some good ideas down on paper. I work as an artist/designer and I never underestimate a ballpen! 🤪👌
This video is just what I needed, thank you =) Yeah I agree with the issue on the ink blobs in using ballpoint pens. It does take time to wipe the blob stuff off so the drawing and shading momentum gets killed off. Also highlight planning is a bit of a pain, but the results can be just as wonderful as using dip pens or other ink-depositing tools so I will do my best in making an output from ballpoint pens. I know of people who mostly use these and their works are really good so I won't lose hope yet =)
Thank you, May Cuaresma, for sharing your thoughts and time to watch. There's some amazing ball point pen work out there! Don't lose hope, ever, and always know that any work you create is another step toward a more positive experience on your creative journey. At least, that's how I see it for myself. :)
I loooove drawing with ballpoint pens! Really enjoy the texture that you get with them, especially doing hatching for shading, it looks really cool to me
I love using these pens but hate the glob and smear! This is a great video and you pointed out some great tips that will help me go forward with using this type of media! Thank you so much!! 😁
I had never thought of them as art supplies... I just use them for color coding my notes :v
They are very versatile and great for use in many facets of writing and creativity. However, I do not recommend using watercolors to color code your notes. hehe! :)
I love ballpoint pens, I have a huge selection and use them all the time for drawing.
I love the way they look!!! 🖊
Hi, Mark! I have always loved to draw with ball-point-pens, especially at school (as you said, that`s what we had back then :) I love your illustration. You are always such an inspiration. Thank you very much for reminding me :) Greetings from Slovenia, Josi
I don't mind ball points, but I only ever use liquid ink, never gel. I'm super snooty like that. Also love dip pens.
There was a pen that was cheap and i think itwas a ballpoint pen but it had a fine tip. I think it was called rsvp or some shit. But it was my go to pen in highschool or for writing. Alotta the asian kids used them. They had the best pens, markers everything
Nice drawing! I didn't know about the trick with the alcohol, will try that sometime. The only downside I can think of for ballpoint pens is that in the long run, your drawings will look like they are bleeding? I'm not sure how to explain this but I used to make a bunch of illustrations and comics when I was at school and used ballpoint pens together with watercolor pencils. Most of my drawings nowadays from early 2000s have lost it's somewhat crips look, the ink looks feathered which makes me sad. I would recommend scanning the drawings just in case because you don't know how they would stand in time.
Many artists do use ballpoint pens and create gorgeous work with them. As you can see in this comment section, many people use them. So it does seem like ballpoint pens are indeed taken seriously by a bunch of people. I'm one of them.
Ballpoint pens are one of my favorite ways to ink, however they don't play nice with my markers. I'm like you, I grew up using them as well. The inconsistency in quality is what eventually drove me to Microns, but this video tempts me to give ballpoint another try. (I love taking the little ball off the end of a new pen, too!!)
BTW, fun fact-- the Frenchman who invented the Bic pen was actually named Bich. The product name was changed for... obvious reasons.
Bich --> bic 😁😁.
For me, it is easier to draw with a Pentel R.S.V.P. pen on smooth paper. And you can mask smudges or make highlights with a gelly role (or a Pentel Milky Pop). I also like that you can put watercolor on it and ink (without alcohol) without altering it. The fact that it's not lightfast annoys me a lot. I have microns, but I don't use them often because I find pens more pleasant for making nuances.
Have you seen the work of Andrea Joseph? Her drawings are the first ballpoint pen drawings I’ve seen since High School (when my lab partner, Mike Zika, used to draw monsters with his wide point Bic pen). Andrea renders beautifully with various colors. I first found her zines on Etsy.
Your result is truly stunning! I love how you layered the strokes to create depth :)
I also used to like working with ballpoint pens in highschool, but what always bothered me most were the random "blobs" you would sometimes get with really cheap ones. I clearly remember working on one piece, spending a lot of time crosshatching and right in the middle of a line the pen suddenly "spat out" a huge drop of ink - and it kept doing that, thus ruining the piece :/ Part of me wants to give them a chance again, but if I see that I can get similar results with more reliable pens like Microns, it just makes me feel safter to stick with them.
There are some people making serious art with ballpoint pens, including a guy who does startlingly naturalistic pictures of farmyard animals using an optical mixing technique ... forget his name. I guess you have to be pretty keen on hatching, but it's like anything else - if you put in the time and effort you'll get results. I very much like the orange bodied Bics, beloved by industrial designers for the surprising sensitivity of line quality, and buy them by the box. For my money the form factor is ideal because they're so much like a pencil. You can write a creditable, minimally shaded Spencerian with them if you have a light touch. Definitely an underrated species of writing / drawing instrument.
Oh my goodness !! I’m so glad I stayed till the end of this video.. I was thinking that with regards to your repetition of cheap, cheap, cheap, it was going to be a total wipe out on the ole ball point pen. I was surprised by the 180 turnaround & demo of how awesome drawings can definitely be made with ball point pens !! I am totally inspired !!! Thanks for the video 👈🏼
I only use 'uni-ball power tank' ball point pens for years now. I've drawn with ballpoint pens all through my school time and they're still my go to tool for doodling. And somehow I became really picky with them after picking up this one. It doesn't smear or clump (like cheap ball pens tend to do), is very pressure sensitive and somehow glides over paper better then any others I tried. My only objection is that I use them up pretty quick, so I need to buy refills regularly. Which is okay, since they aren't that expensive. Once I couldn't find refills and tried out every single ball point pen in an artist supply store and was like 'nope, doesn't do it for me'. So yeah, I really recommend those.
THANK you for talking about this issue. also, i am one of the people in the ball point club and i'm proud to say i've always been.
they're cheap: not heavy on your spendings.
they're so many varieties: and you can try them all (so cheap!!), and everyone has different ballpoint tastes. i for once hate fine points.
they're pretty much disposable but the trick is: they age so well. and i choose to spare some pens for how old and beautiful their ink has become in maybe 5 or 6 years, so i don't use them as often just to keep them around. it's a fun hobby just as much as fountain pens and expensive aquarelles, and for super cheap!!
but remember to dispose of the plastic properly. most parts are recyclable if not all of them!
bonus; HOTEL/SOUVENIR PEN FINDINGS
What a wonderful reply, Ella Stone! Thank you for taking your time to post feedback and yes, I agree with everything you mention. I wish I had mentioned the recyclability of the parts, as I hadn't thought of that - what a great "point." And yes, I am an avid collector of hotel pens. In fact, right now I'm looking at the beautiful orange and white click pen I got from the famous Hotel del Coronado (The Del), which I stayed at two years ago, not knowing it was a haunted hotel! YIKES! But, the pen is SO smooth and fine, it's hard to believe it's a cheap hotel pen! lol! Thank you again and hope you are well! ~ Mark
@@MDCampbell gotta love the "point" pun-also i hope this one hotel's pen quality was enough to make it worth having monsters under your bed at night! 😂
thank you for replying! i hope we can all appreciate ballpoint pens more, they deserve it.
I love ball point pens so much for both writing and drawing. In elementary and middle school we were forced to write with fountain pens and I hated the damn things so much, ball point pens fit the pressure I apply and my handwriting so much better. The black BICs at 10:00 are my favourites, so smooth once you've used them a little bit.
Thanks for the video! When I followed artclasse we had to make a drawing with a 4-colour Bic every day. That's how I got to appreciate the ballpoint pen and discovered e.g. how to mix colours!
Being left handed using a ball point pen makes it work differently and causes the ink to ball up more on the bottom. Apparently they are meant to be pulled not pushed while writing :) random fact of the day :)
Interesting, when I draw with left hand I am drawing right to left so don't have this problem. While drawing with right hand I am doing the opposite drawing from left to right. I guess I am wierdo 😂
thank you so much for this video. i am so stupid that i never thought to use ball point pens but you inspired me. just finished few sketches now and i feel so happy, got the rubbing alcohol too. just what i needed today, recovering from a virus and inktober. thank you again, love your work
i use ballpoint for all of my illustrations. they’re cheap smooth and are quite water resistance so i don’t have to worry about line art smudging when using watercolors/ goache
Last year's inktober I used a ballpoint for inking my watercolor illustrations, since I was starting with art again, and didn't have any waterproof ink. I checked them again a few months later and they all look as if the lines had been blurred. They were totally fine before, I really don't know if it was an effect of the water (which is weird, since they were already dried) or maybe the paper. All I know is I'm glad I took pictures of them before this happened.
On the contrary, even if ballpens aren't taken seriously by most people, there were artists who actually used ballpoint pens in their artworks. Examples of them are Andy Warhol, Il Lee, Lennie Mace, James Mylne, and a lot more.
Lennie Mace YES!!! I knew Lennie casually through mutual friends back when he lived in NYC and I attended several of his shows (I think he's mostly living in Japan nowadays). Lennie's work was not only beautiful because of his technique with ballpoint pens, but his actual drawings were beautiful, elegant, and stylized, while also retaining a lively "cartoon" quality. He has a website, (which is not updated very often, to my knowledge: www.lenniemace.com/) Here is a link to his ballpoint rendering of da Vinci's MONA LISA. It was commissioned by Pilot Pen company, I believe. I saw it on exhibit: it's fairly large, (larger than da Vinci's original): commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mona_a%27la_Mace_in_ballpoint_pen_by_Lennie_Mace_1993_(shown_cropped).jpg
I LOVE ink joypens so so so much
Edit: I also love bic cristal pens
Haley Bee crystal pens hit different
The BiC Originals are even better.
@@luciusirving5926 honestly i dont think so, i feel like they have less color variety and dry out quicker (also i am op i just had to get a new account)
Bic brand comes in 3 widths, Fine is about .5mm, the regular cheapies are usually around .7mm, and don't the Injoys have a 1mm or 1.4 mm? To me the tip size is what matters. I bought the colored ones for work actually. Im an artist trapped as an accoutant, so I color code all my notes, labels etc. LOL!
This was actually pretty informative and even uninspiring to use ball point pens and knowing the down sides of it I can know what I'm getting myself in to. Now I'm off to Walmart to buy a few and see what I can create. Thanks you for the video 🤘
I absolutely love bic pens! I have several colors from fine point to bold!
Funny, I bought a couple of packages since this video just to keep at work. I love having them on hand and find I use them more frequently during the day for routine tasks, than at home for drawing. They make my Post It notes really pop! ;)
Great video and awesome drawing! I saw below someone mentioning they might not be popular because they're not lightfast, could be a reason.
I often use a Bic black ballpoint pen to sketch and do linearts, it's waterproof and works well with watercolour. I also use the Bic one for smudgy alcohol marker sketches.
Thank you for your kind thoughts, Shesvii! I really appreciate that. I often forget that some folks consider lightfastness to be a deal breaker, but in my experience, I don't know many people who are hanging ball point pen artwork on the wall in sunlit rooms for years. That's not to dismiss the concern, because it is truly legit, but it is just that most folks I know usually draw in sketchbooks with ball point pen, so it's not usually a major concern. But, I can see how it definitely would be for some. Stay well! ~ Mark
@@MDCampbell thanks for the reply! I definitely agree with you, ballpoint drawings are mostly sketchbook material. However, I know lots of artists that prioritize lightfastness.
Anyway as you said, the fact that they're cheap makes them look less fancy and that also drives many people away.
I love plain ole bic pens. I wish they still made the fine point yellow bodied ones--those were my fave :(
They don't make those anymore?! I'd better hang on to the one I have sitting around, then. They're great for super neat small writing, or fine line drawings.
@@nictheartist They might make them...but I can't find them here. Mind you, I live at the edge of the earth.
I like the ballpoint pens that roll really well. I use them for lining in my drawings.
The great thing about these pens is that you tend to have one around somewhere, and, with a bit of practice, you can do some cool drawings with it. Pretty much anyone can afford a basic BIC pen, still there no excuse not too give this a go.
Well whatever you do manage to create disappears in about three days of hot sun. People are far better starting with a #2 pencil.
I use ballpointpens for lineart in watercolorpaintings, cause they dont smear with water! ☺️ and you can get light thin lines with them!
Great tip! Thanks!
What brand do you recommend? All the ballpoints I’ve had smear when I start painting.
Oh thats wierd. A regular Pilot or Bic should work. I often use the ones that you get for free by companies, no brand and cheap ones.
Do you let it dry in between? Did you use a gelpen? they can sometimes look like a regular ballpointpen but have the smallest text that says it is a gelpen..
I have tried a bunch of ballpointpens and maybe one or two was smearing.. ☺️ I always test pens in beforehand so I can work with the one I like the most. Hope this was any help! ❤️
I love multiliners but I always try to keep a colored ballpoint in my kit. I like them because you can get those really light lines. So you can do a sketch in them and finish it by darkening the lines you like without the real need to erase. I love doing studies in them too, especially when I have multiple colors. I like the Bic fine point. They don't blob as much. But you are right. All the greens are blah.
I can get different line width with a ballpoint pin.... and my black Bic pens are purple too after a wash..but as you said, cheap pens vary.
I think the main reason is that the regular ones are not archival at all. My notes from high school from about 20 years ago really faded a lot. I just threw those out a month ago because my parents were moving house and it was something I noticed. You can get archival ball point pens though and I just bought some of those the other day. Big warning: don’t put fixative for pencil on it. That has alcohol in it apparently and will bleed blue like in your demo. Ruined a rather nice drawing like that the other day, ugh. I just didn’t cover it up while trying to protect some pencil stuff on the same page and that was a nasty surprise 😬🤦♀️
Bic are amazing to draw with and excellent ink quality!
I do like the Bic, as well, Theresa Baker! Thank you for your feedback! Hoping you are well! :)
Color pens start @ 8:00
Awesome video I love gel pens but every now and then I love using the Good old ballpoint pens
I've noticed the same thing about the green ink in both these brands. I wonder what's up with the formula with green pigments to cause that.
Love using ballpoint pens and other ink based drawing media
Hi Mark love your sketch piece I guess to be the coated tongue I trying to learn to use pens more in my doodling and my sketching I always been a pencil person I'm more from artist such as yourself and DeMoose here on UA-cam thank you so much for sharing
Thanks for this! Makes me want to pick up a set of colored ballpoint pens and make some art with them :D
One of my favorite artists, France Van Stone - she does AMAZING things with ball point pen. Her ball point pen portraits sort of remind me a bit of the look of da Vinci's sketchbooks. If you haven't seen her pen art, please check it out. She is so talented.
Mark black Ink Joys are the absolute best pen for writing but maybe I’ll try and draw with them now. Thanks great video as always.
Thank you, Rob L! Funny, when I grew up, there were only about three options for cheap ball point pens. We're fortunate to live in a time where options are plentiful and availability is at our fingertips! Cheers! :)
I’m very disappointed in you Mark. You asked us to tell you why we disliked a video which I didn’t nor did I like it but I told you how I feel about digital art and it went totally ignored by you. I realize you need it for your job I’m not dense but you could have at least replied. It just goes to show you are like every other UA-cam artist you can’t take criticism at all. I may unsubscribe after a few years of being a subscriber. Just because I feel the way I do it doesn’t mean I am right it is just how I feel. Digital art is just too perfect and art should have little flaws but again this is just how I feel and not how everyone does. I had a friend that was on my Instagram and her art is all digital all flawless and all quite boring to look at so I stopped following her. Yet my art she didn’t even like or comment. Snobbery if you ask me. Anyway have a nice day and I may not stop by anymore feeling very slighted at this point.
Recently I ordered a Bic color set. I started drawing portraits and it’s quite challenging to get skin tones, but I’m making progress. Lately, I’ve been looking for a grey ink ballpoint but it seems they don’t make them - I’ve only found grey in gel inks. If any anybody knows where to get one, please let me know. Thanks for the video.
My university sells these coloured pen sets from Staedtler that I use (complete amateur though). I wasn't aware that ballpoints aren't used for colouring however. I like the 20 pack, because it provides a lot of variety (multiple blues, greens, pinks, grays, two different browns, black, and the rainbow).
This video is very good!
And just a bit of a side note: I can *barely* hear your voice over the outro-music at the end there, tho it could be my audio settings...
It's not just you. The music was overloud. :D
on the subject of ballpoint pens: have you tried out Pilot's FriXion Erasable pens? I find them to be really nice and they erase better than PaperMate.
as for using pens for lining my drawings, i actually prefer either PaperMate Flair or UniBall Air. i find them easier to use and much more affordable than micon's etc..
I love this pens too. Just have in mind the ink may disappear on really hot days.
I love using ballpoints. I use them for 90% of inked art. My favourite is the Bic medium with a 1.0mm ball. I use them for line art, shading (like a pencil), hatching, coloring in areas. Not the greatest for stippling, but it does work. Almost all of my Inktober2019 illustrations were ballpoint.
Ink joy pens are the nicest to write with. I LOVE them!
I developed much of my drawing skills in my youth using cheap ballpoint pens! And one thing I discovered back then - if you use the ballpoint pen on glossy surface paper, you will have far more control over line thickness and the ink applies smoother on the paper too.
I really enjoyed this video 😊. I also think that “ artist” don’t use them because there not archival I also love doodling with it also teaches me as a new person to art how shade and work in layers. And to practice with them cross hatchlings ect. Density tone values I have seen some gorgeous work with just a bic crystal clear blue pen it fascinates me. I am even using it to catch up on my inktober ( I was sick 😷 a few days my first granddaughter was born ( I took your advice of this is for me don’t have a mental break down if your not done in 31 days) made this year way more fun 😃. I enjoy uni ball pens they have color ones all being on the dark side of black with undertones of these color hues. I also like gear there comfy And lol this one I picked up from the dollar tree Thanks again for a great video.
I love colored ballpoint pens for sketching. Limited colors force you to learn and so dies your inability to erase those initial sketch lines. I have a difficult time keeping my marks light because of joint issues - sketching with pens really helps me stay mindful of my line weight. Gooey ink globs are evil though. Just... ugh. And I would also really love a yellow pen. It’s such a bummer.
I thought about using ballpoint pens for Inktober because I love the drawings that Bobby Chiu creates with just a ballpoint pen but I tried briefly and got frustrated with the blobs of ink so I decided to use fineliners, brush pens and alcohol markers and leave the ballpoint pen for a time when I could try it without getting frustrated by it. I used to doodle with them in school as well but haven't used them for years.
Ballpoint is a good transition between pencil and fountain/dip pens. People just need to control the pressure with their hands, you can do both sketching and shading with that bad boy
I've done some neat stuff with ballpoint pens, but I definitely lack the skills required to do the kind of shading you did here!
I mostly work with pencils and graphite sticks, oil pastels, and water-based brush markers. I'm working on refining my skills with pencil crayons, and eventually I'll get back to painting--most of my experience has been with watercolours, but I have dabbled in acrylics and would like to try my hand at oils someday.
The most I use ballpoint pens for is sketching, I don't use them for anything else. But if you have a Daiso near you, they sell a multi-pen with yellow and it's like a dollar fifty.
I do a lot of drawing with ball point pens on copy paper at my desk... when you have 5 minutes to draw something you use what you have! I like them... I don't love them because I like a BLACK ink and ball point pens don't go really dark but they work for when they are there.
funny how it’s one of the most fun mediums to experiment and play around with
i personally use ballponit pens everyday as a part of my en plain air set. its fun to do a water color with a different colored pen on toned paper. i do that along with a few splashes of watercolor a white gel pen for highlights is all i need for a nice landscape sketch. never really cared about highlights in my water colors... just dab in with the gel pen or a white marker or white gouache.. i might care if these where works to sell. doing the linework in a different color is fun, example a fire hydrant done in red with an orange or yellow pen where the light hits it, instead of boring black line work. it also has the benefit of making your travel art set extremely light, when compared to a set up for oils or acrylics... anything to save the old back lol. plus you can take it on the plane while everyone else is dealing with lugage and tsa and your getting a coffee (assuming you have a watercolor set with cakes instead of tubes... they always give me a hard time with the tubes).
I have nearly a hundred ballpoint pens in my personal collection, and I love them :)
I think they are quite popular for sketching but I've never seen anyone do ballpoint pen commissions... they are not lightfast and the ink blob thing doesn't make them reliable enough I guess.
I have one ballpoint pen that I really love and I try to only use it for birthday cards. It hardly clogs and has a finer point than other pens. Plus the ink is very dark. I've used it for a few drawings but it seems like such a waste as I haven't found any suitable replacement.
I use Noodler’s Konrad roller ball pens because I can refill them with Noodler’s ink. Works more than fine for me.
honestly i like to use them for doodlin as they are good for sketching and making details such as fur/hair
I only draw with a standard blue Bic pen, I simply love the soft feel of the tip.
I use those bic pens to sketch with primarily when I am trying not to rely on any sort of erasing or being too picky about even just warm up sketches -- but you're right, I think -- the cheapness and minor cons of the pens/that ink sort of makes me feel like I wouldn't want to do a final piece in that medium. Hence why I use them for sketching instead~
I buy the Coletto style from the Dollar Tree. It's a knock off but you get 8 different colors in one pen. Then you can take just that and a sketchbook with you. Handy if you enjoy traveling light. :)
Interesting video. Is there any difference between "ball point" and "roller ball" pens? I've never been able to find a definitive answer. Like you, I grew up using ball points. These days, my favorite for writing and drawing is a Platinum Carbon fountain pen, extra fine point. I love the flowing ink and feel of the nib on paper.
I haven’t used ball point pens for anything more than sketches and doodles and maybe even some studies in years in terms of drawing. I use them a lot as a server and a writer but as an artist I find they’re mostly useful for doodles and gesture drawings. They can help build line confidence if you draw strictly with pens, but that can be any pen tbh.
I pretty much learned how to draw almost exclusively with ball point. Once people said I was "good" I spent the money on proper graphite and fineliners. I might go give them another go now, should be interesting to see how it turns out 10 years later.
Any tips on how to get the ink flowing again on a ball point pen that hasn’t been used for a while? I have a lot of pens that I’d like to use or donate but can’t get them to work again even though they are full of ink.
I'm not a huge fan of ball point pens. However I purchased a multi-color pack of PaperMate InkJoy 100 1.0mm bold tip ball point pens a while back. They changed my low opinion of ball point pens. I've done a few experiments with them. After taking some pictures in good sun light, tomorrow I'll link to some images of my experiments. Suffice it for now to say that their ink lines can handle being colored over with water based marker, like 1 to 3 layers unaffected. And I can get two line sizes which are obviously different thicknesses.
Ball point pens generally like smooth paper best of all. I've been using them with Rhodia pads and marker paper. They'll work on textured paper, but one should expect that they'll need to go over some of their lines again as the hills and valleys in such papers will cause some skipping and possibly fading. In any case I've found that having a couple of sheets of paper under the sheet I'm working on makes writing/drawing smoother and cuts down on skipping and fading. The padding underneath ,rather than a hard surface, helps a lot. One could also get a soft writing board to do the job. JetPens and Amazon have them.
The tips on the PaperMate pens with pull off caps actually does come to a finer, sharper tip than the click pens do. Their tips are also a bit easier to see when in contact with the paper.
As I said earlier, tomorrow I'll share some images of what I've found in my experience with the PaperMate InkJoy ball point pens.
I haven't really tried to draw with them. I don't know if I should.
Of course you should try. How will you know if they are your jam or not otherwise? For me, I try everything I can - it's the only way to learn what works for me and what doesn't.
Personally I like the plain bic pens and the bic multi pen. I find that the ink doesn't glob up hardly at all. The problem with ballpoint pens that advertise "smooth writing" or anything like that typically have ink that globs up too much. The consistency comes from your hand and technique. Look at Nicholas Sanchez and Frank Cho, they do amazing work with just plain bic pens. Idk if people really dislike them but I know that people overlook the pen and are too impatient to use them.
Also a suggestion if i may, play the outro music after you're finished talking or lower the volume of it.
I like ballpoint pens. I drew a really cool Silver Chariot and the shading looks pretty noice. I probably wouldn’t use them for serious art yet because I don’t have skill but they’re fun.