A demonstration of a mountain landscape in pen & ink.
You do not need to be accomplished in drawing to produce an impressive landscape.
Supply List:
–One half sheet of poster board (better quality material if you prefer) Approximately 15″ x 20″.
–A fine-line, black felt tip marker. (or any pen like Rapidograph, etc.)
–Pencil (I use a mechanical pencil with HB lead).
–Eraser of choice.
–India Ink or Lamp Black or Black airbrush acrylic. (I use airbrush acrylic).
–A Styrofoam plate or if your mate will allow, a dinner plate. –(poetry)
–An old newspaper.
–A utility spray bottle or other water source.
–Paper towels or paper napkins.
– A watercolor Brush
First let me explain how I arrived at this unique way of rendering in pen and ink.
In 1978 I was given as a gift, the book “Maxfield Parish” by Coy Ludwig. Since then it has become the classic reference for this artist’s life and works. Maxfield Parrish produced book illustrations, magazine covers and landscapes for calendars in the early 20th century. The images have become famous. In this book, his unique style of painting is explained step-by-step and is shown in photographs. This one book had a major influence on the development of my illustration style.
I was already familiar with the work of Franklin Booth. His engravings are similar to pen & ink illustrations. His use of textures, directional pen strokes and areas of contrasting black and white silhouettes, fascinated me and was something that I used in my commercial illustrations at the time.
Note this Booth illustration; it’s line work in the sky, land and tree. We can imitate the engraving process, with pen strokes. To the right is the basic shading of an object using stipple, crosshatching and simple line work.
Now we will combine these two artist’s techniques to produce a mountain landscape in pen & ink.
From childhood I was drawn to certain comic-book artists, like the ones pictured here. (Left to Right) Hal Foster (Prince Valiant) and Frank Frazzetta.
My parents were wrong — Reading comic-books was NOT a waste of time.
This pen and ink illustration was for 1975 Theater Under the Stars’ production of “Camelot” – in Houston. It is one of my favorite and most successful pieces that I have produced. It was practical also; it could be used as a poster or reduced down to post card size and it still reproduced well in the newspaper.
Notice the influences of Maxfield Parrish and Hal Foster? Add one more influential artist – Bob Peak. Remember his movie posters? You might enjoy Google Image Searching these guys and see what I mean.
Later, you will understand why I gave you this little history. This pen & ink demonstration will introduce you to simple ideas that will become the basis for much more complex work in future demonstrations of color media.
– Now on to the demonstration.
Tear off a piece of newspaper (at least 12″ x 12″) and wad it up. Crush the paper thoroughly as in the example on the right. The paper should become soft and pliable.
We are going to let the materials do most of the work and tell us what to draw.
Note: This is the part of the process that I borrowed from Maxfield Parrish. He used cheese cloth or linen and applied paint with the crumpled material to begin the textures in his paintings.
Slightly dilute the black ink or acrylic – and with the brush, mix well and cover the plate. Place the paper wad into the black solution, just like charging a rubber stamp on an ink pad.
Note: The black paint/ink needs to be very dense if applied to a non-glossy and porous paper.
Just like a rubber stamp, apply the wad of paper to the poster board and produce an irregular pattern as shown here.
Repeat the procedure and build up an area like the one shown here.
Stand back and use your imagination.
What do you see? Hopefully with little effort the pattern will suggest rock formations or a mountain.
With the pencil, accentuate areas and bring out the details of a landscape. I lightly pencil in, a waterfall with several levels. Work lightly with the pencil and think about the light source. I always default to the light coming from the upper right. That means that the black areas are the shadowed sides (the left sides and undersides) of the rock formations.
Now begin to use the pen to enhance the pattern to make it suggest a mountain and make areas of lighter shadow and textures – using crosshatching, *stippling or line work.
Note: This is were a knowledge of Franklin Booth’s work comes in handy. The direction of the pen strokes can describe a surface, and opposing strokes helps to control value. Control the pen stroke – making them thick on one end and tapered on the other; this can give a gradation effect. ( and many other methods of manipulating lines)
Begin to add subjects of interest – trees etc.
In the 60s and 70s our family would camp-out in King’s Canyon and Sequoya National Parks, California. I was so taken with the Sierra Nevada Mountains (just like Ansel Adams and John Muir) that the Redwood trees and rocky cliffs became my favorite painting subjects. I now have the tree shapes memorized. You might want to find some photo references of trees, from which to work.
The tree in the foreground should show more detail than the one far up on the cliff. I use my artistic license to render these Sugar Pines with myriads of ball shaped, line, star-like twinkles. (descriptively poetic enough?). In my career as a commercial illustrator my line gimmicks like these have graced many Uniroyal Tire Ads at Christmas time. The client preferred original work rather than clip art.
The pen work at this stage, is just a matter of repeating all that we have done so far –over and over and over. It reminds me of my mother working with Crochet. — Repetitive and mind numbing, but when it is done, very effective.
It’s finished when you are satisfied with the amount of detail.
-Hope you had fun. Don’t forget to sign it.
