Introduction: Drawing With Ink Pen and Golden Ink

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About: Hey I'm Herbou ! I mainly do drawing, which I practice since childhood, traditional or digital. Drawing is my greatest passion ! I look forward to learn new things with you all ! :D

Hey everyone !

This is my first Instructable so I'll try to do it well. Also I'm not a native english speaker so I'll try my best aswell.

So let's begin !

Supplies

For this drawing I used :

  1. 2H pencil
  2. 0.5mm mechanical pencil
  3. eraser
  4. 0.05, 0.1 and a 0.2 ink pen Pigma Micron
  5. 0.3 ink pen UniPin
  6. small brush
  7. gold ink Winsor&Newton
  8. Canson sketchbook

Step 1: Find References

Before starting a drawing, it's good to have an idea of what you want to draw.
For this drawing, I know I wanted to make a young woman with flowers in a Japanese atmosphere. So I selected some images that inspired me.

Tip: When you don't really have a clear idea of what you want to draw, select themes that you like and search for reference images, looking at the whole thing can help you find inspiration.

Step 2: Basic Shape

First I draw the shape of the head with very simple shapes. The cross allows me to determine the position of the face, the nose will start at the crossing, above will be the eyes and eyebrows, below the mouth in the axis of the nose.
I draw the overall shape of the ear, which is between the eyes and the nose.

(Ideally, the top of the ear should be aligned with the middle of the eye and the bottom of the ear should be aligned with the bottom of the nose.)

Then I draw the neck and the beginning of the bust.

Step 3: Adding the Face

Thanks to the previously drawn cross, I place the different elements of the face.

I'm also starting to draw flowers, for now the white chrysanthemums that I selected earlier.

Step 4: Adding Some Details

Now it's time to add some details.

First the hair, then some hair jewelry, more flowers and leaves! I also add the top of a clothing on which I draw a pattern that can be found in Japanese culture.

Step 5: Cleaning the Sketch

Now that I have finished my sketch, I use my mechanical pencil to clearly draw the outline of the elements.

Step 6: Adding the Gold Ink

I decided to put the chrysanthemums in gold ink.

You can see that the ink may look a little brown, but it's a question of angle as you can see in the third picture, if I move my sheet, we can see the golden highlights.

Tip: I do not know if it's the same for all types of golden inks, but with my Winsor & Newton bottle, I need to shake it well with each use so that the pigments mix.

Step 7: Inking

So, time to ink !

I usually use the finest pen for small details.

I also try to differentiate the model with the elements of decoration such as the flowers here for example by using several types of points (2 or more).

Step 8: Erasing the Sketch

Now that I have finished the inking, it's time to erase the pen from below.

Step 9: Shading

Now it's time to add some relief with shadows.

Step 10: Done !

And now it's done ! I finally added some more illuminated details, because the drawing felt "empty" to me, now I'm satisfied !

I particularly like working on this kind of technique with ink. My work is far from perfect but I learn every day and I improve myself by drawing again and again.
My last tip will be this one: draw! The best way to improve yourself is to draw and draw again.

As they say: practice makes perfect !

Thank you for reading my Instructable, I hope it helps some of you.