Black ink Bic ball point pen Drawing

Drawing with ball point pens can be an excellent medium to use with some practice and a little information.

When working with ball point pens I like to use Bic black ink medium point. I have found that these work the best for me.  I have also worked with colored ball points pens and will post another article on those. You can get different techniques using both medium and fine points.  Before starting you may want to see what works best for you by practicing. Maybe a combination of both fine and medium points.  Bold ball point pens are available also.

I have found that starting with a very light pencil drawing works best. Try not and use heavy, dark pencil lines, this can cause your pen to gum up and make a mess on your art.  The darker you make your initial sketch the more you will have to erase after your done.

Paper selection can make a difference in how your pen art comes out or looks as well. I have used everything from light weight copy paper up to 140 lb watercolor paper and both give different results. The lighter paper usually ends up curling on the ends especially if you have allot of hatched work. This can be remedied by placing your work in a flat book for a few days with something heavy placed on it.

Different techniques can be used for ball point pen art. I like to use cross hatching in allot of my work. Shading techniques can be done with different amounts of pressure put on the pen, and the amount of hatching put into a section. Repeated heavy cross hatching can make an area very dark.

One trick I have learned is if you watch the point of your pen and it starts looking like its gumming up roll the tip on a piece of scrap paper. This will get rid of a clog or gummed up tip.

The drawing below I did with a black ball point pen. If you look you can see the shading done using cross hatching.