How to Become Confident with Your Pen Work - Drawing & Painting Tips

Do you remember when you were learning to Ride a BIKE? 

It was hard.  And the ground was hard. Road Rash was not fun.  

Learning to draw confidently with a permanent ink pen is WAY easier!!

Pink Flower Puff - Sketchbook Activity - Freehand Line Work 

I love drawing with black ink. I love sharp crisp lines.  Although, I often use other colours, black is by far my favourite. Learning to draw with a pen, is all about mark making.  Pen work can be used to add mass, to create shapes, to produce texture and enhance the flow of your work.  

Creating interesting marks with your pen confidently is alot like learning to ride your bike.  Learning a few basics before 'going it alone' really helps.  

************
There is further discussion on this topic on my YouTube post: Become Friends with Your Pen - The Line 
************

Wendy's Drawing with Pen 101 

Start with Confident Line work that sweeps across the page. 

First your materials: 

- .05 or .08 Pigma Permanent Ink Pens.  
(If your book is smaller than 9 x 12, use the smaller pen.   I like black but they do come in other colours.  Steadler pens are a great brand as well and come in these sizes)

- Multi Media Sketchbook: They have smooth paper for drawing on and will take water if you want to add watercolour (I  use the Canson XL 9 x 12) 

- HB pencil, kneaded eraser and vinyl eraser

- 3 favourite watercolours and a brush

That's it!

Make some interesting shapes with your watercolours 

1.  Put a wash on your page: Paint 3 of your favourite colours on your page, making sure to make interesting shapes, keep the colours light, leave white spaces and take some of the colour out to the edges of the pages.  Let it dry completely.  

It is really hard to draw on plain white paper.  It kills your confidence.  Having colour on the page will really help you relax and just draw.  Try it.  

2.  Loosely Draw a Flower Vase: No perfection here.  Take a pencil and lightly draw a vase that is an interesting random shape. Don't worry about symmetry.  Once you have the shape, draw it in one long continuous line with your pen leaving the top open for the flowers that will cover part of it.  

Outline a design on the vase loosely with a pencil and then use your pen to draw it.  Don't trace over the pencil lines just use them as a guide.  Add the details as well - freehand.  

Flower 1: Draw an elongated shape with a center, echoing the shape

3. Draw your Flowers: For this project I will introduce you to 3 different flowers.  Each is to be done freehand with your pen.  The first one will be an odd loose shape and the other two will be circles.  Not perfect circles.  Just loose circles.  

Flower 2: small .5 inch circle with a small circle in the center.

Use a pencil to draw the flower's shape and centers.  For the little flowers (Flower 2)  use your pen to fill in all the details: 3 petals, darken the center and a few directional lines in each petal. For Flower 3 - The Carnation type flower, draw circles of wiggly lines.  The first circle is small, the center and then do several rows around it, to get the size you want.  

Flower 3: Circles of Wiggly Lines 

Draw loose flower circles behind and above your basic 3 flower shapes to fill your vase.  Be sure and have some peeking out from behind, some hanging over the edges and others reaching for the top.  

4.  Take a flower break: Draw lines from the top of your vase to the bottom leaving your design shape in the middle untouched.  Draw the lines freehand, sweeping down the page in a continuous manner.  They do not have to be an exact distance apart.  Let them follow the flow of the vase.  

Add a few embellishments as you fill up your Vase - WIP. 

5.  Add Embellishments: Add some darks using leafy branches, sweeping little lines with little black circles and longer droopy leaves.  I also grounded my vase by putting a lined mat under it.  

6.  Lightly paint your vase and mat: I painted my vase with a light wash of the pink, to make my flowers pop.  I also added a light shadow under the flowers that spilled over the edge of the vase.  I then painted the mat a slightly darker pink.  

Pink Flower Fluff - Sketchbook Activity - Freehand Line Work

************
There is further discussion on this topic on my YouTube post: Become Friends with Your Pen - The Line 

Taking Registrations for my Spring/Summer Events: 

•  Join me in the Shuswap for a 4 Day Outdoor Sketching Art Retreat hosted by Joanne Denis, June 20-23, 2025.  I will be the instructor.  This is an all inclusive: food, instruction, accommodations and drive from Lower Mainland.  $350-$600 depending on the room choices.  www.aventurasbc.ca
  
  
• Come join me for An Adventure - Let's go Outdoor Sketching   2.5 hr $65.  This is small group instruction.  Contact me to set up a date. Location: Lower Mainland
  
  
• Save the Date:  next set of 3 Zoom classes Thursdays, October 9, 16 & 23.   Enhancing Your Drawing & Painting Skills.  New focus for each set of classes

Always  Available at Art by Wendy's Studio

Original work, Commissions, Private Drawing Lessons, Prints and Cards of her Work, 

Be sure to like and share my posts.  You won't miss a single post if you Follow by Email 

Have a great Artful Day,

  

Wendy

Painting Green Bushy Trees and Shrubs - Painting & Drawing Tips

Here on the West Coast, ‘green’ is a year round colour in Nature. 

But painting ‘green’ things is a challenge that can bring any artist to their kneels.

View Off Bold Point Trail, Quadra Island - Matted 14 x 18 $340 

I love the colour green.  But I also, have been humbled when trying to paint my dream. 

I have discovered a few things that really help.  I would love to share them with you.  Maybe you could share a few of your secrets too. 

Wendy’s Secrets to Green Trees & Bushes

(I decided to demo with the shrub as it was smaller and easier to see the steps I follow.  This is an ink and watercolour painting.  You can omit the pen work if you wish. )

 

Note the pattern of the shrubs running along the rocks

1.     Try a find a pattern in the shape - When it came time to painting this shrub that trailed along the rock, I first captured the movement with loose pen strokes.  Notice there are two rows.  The second row of line work was to capture the change in value.

I first painted the water behind the shrub - note the looseness around the pen work.  

2.    Focus on the Colour temperature - As I blocked in the colour of the shrub, I was mindful that the colour green in the sun was more a bright cool yellow, top right side.  So I blocked it in with a cool yellow.  For the remainder of the shrub I painted a more neutral midtone green.  This of course blended at the edges with the yellow.

Blocking in the colour for the shrub

      I danced my brush strokes across the area to get the feel of the bouncy foliage in my strokes. 

3.    Add a darker layer - Looking at the foliage I noted the colour and value changes as it moved right to left - Olive green to blue green.  And also in waves of light green backed with a darker value green for the upright branches and darker closer to the rock.   Again the brush strokes danced like leaves rather that just one big stroke.  Some of the ‘dabs’ of green were on the yellow. 

4.    Dropped in the Very DARK - Using my darkest green, almost dry brushing, I added the greens where they fitted in.  This was really the same areas and in step 3 but not covering as much.  Thus creating another value layer of green.    At the same time I also added a bit of warm yellow under the upright branches and to the patch behind the trees to indicate some branches were slightly shaded. 

   Throughout the process I was working wet on dry with each layer and using short brush strokes to mimic the pattern and movement within the shrub itself.    I have found that creating full bushy trees and shrubs is very much like painting fur.  There is a need for different values, attention to the pattern of the values and attention to the colour temperature.  

Close up of the trees from the painting 

When you look at the trees and other shrubs in the whole painting you can see I followed the same process.  

I know there are other ways to paint trees and get that fullness but I prefer to glaze with my colours and so this is my favourite way to proceed.  I would love to know some of your secrets.  

Taking Registrations for my Spring/Summer Events: 

•  Join me in the Shuswap for a 4 Day Outdoor Sketching Art Retreat hosted by Joanne Denis, June 20-23, 2025.  I will be the instructor.  This is an all inclusive: food, instruction, accommodations and drive from Lower Mainland.  $350-$600 depending on the room choices.  www.aventurasbc.ca
  
  
• Come Outdoor Sketching with me in local parks.  2.5 hr $65.  This is small group instruction, max 3.  Dates to be determined as weather warms up, contact me to get onto my call list.
  
  
• Save the Date:  next set of 3 Zoom classes Thursdays, October 9, 16 & 23.   Enhancing Your Drawing & Painting Skills.  New focus for each set of classes

Always  Available at Art by Wendy's Studio

Original work, Commissions, Private Drawing Lessons, Prints and Cards of her Work, 

Be sure to like and share my posts.  You won't miss a single post if you Follow by Email 

Have a great Artful Day,

  

Wendy