Pen and Ink Sketches

Making pen and ink sketches is a great way to draw faces, and there are many ways to go about it. One of the best things about pen and ink sketching is that you only need a pen and paper to make! Therefore, creating pen and ink sketches is a very affordable hobby.

To start with, there are so many different types of pens that you can use for pen and ink sketching. If you want to learn how to sketch faces right away, you don’t even need to go out and buy any special pens. You can simply start learning how to sketch with a pen by using the ballpoint pens that you have lying around the house.

If you want to pursue ink sketching more seriously, you can experiment with trying various pens that are made specifically for artists. These include graphic pens, drafting pens and fountain pens. Each type of pen will feel slightly different in your hand and create a different type of line as you move your hand across the paper. Using different kinds of pens will add variety to your pen sketching.

One of the most important qualities of pen and ink sketching is the fact that you can’t erase mistakes. For beginning artists, this may be frustrating, because they may feel embarrassed when they make mistakes. Don’t worry about it though. The erasable quality of pen and ink sketches results in a wonderful sense of immediacy in the artwork.

When learning how to sketch faces with pen and ink, there are two approaches you can take: you can either aim to capture the quick essence of the person’s face, or you can aim to draw the face in careful detail. This page will focus on drawing quick sketches that capture the essence of faces, rather than the precise details.

For beginners just learning how to sketch with a pen, it’s a great idea to start by doing quick pen ink sketches of faces. This type of quick pen and ink sketching is known as “gesture drawing”. Because pen and ink sketching is so portable, you can learn how to sketch with pen anywhere.

You will always find an array of changing faces to sketch in public places – while you’re waiting at the airport, on the subway, at the park, etc. Look at the faces of people around you and quickly draw pen and ink sketches of their faces.

Keep your pen sketching loose and flowing. Your aim is to capture the essence of the person’s face, instead of details. It’s perfectly okay if your gestural pen and ink sketches look like scribbles because that is how these types of pen and ink sketches are supposed to look.

Even famous artists worked in this way, creating quick pen ink sketches to capture their subject matter. Sometimes they would use these pen and ink sketches as “studies” to understand the movement or form of a person, animal or object.

When you are doing this type of gestural pen sketching, keep your eyes focused on the faces you are looking at, instead of keeping your eyes glued to the paper.

You want to look at your paper as little as possible.

Just glance down occasionally at your pen ink sketching. This will help keep you focused on the process of pen sketching, rather than get caught up in what it looks like.

Also, remember to keep your pen in constant motion when creating gestural pen ink sketches. If you pause for too long, your left brain will start “thinking” and try to take over. This can be a detriment to creating free-flowing pen and ink sketches.

When you work quickly, keeping your hand in constant motion and keeping your eyes focused on your subject, you will be able to capture the essence of whatever you are trying to sketch.

Learning how to sketch with a pen is easy and fun. Anyone can make pen and ink sketches – all you need to do is pick up a pen and paper and go for it!