Pen & Ink Drawing

Frank J. Lohan

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780486315768
• Topic: Arte
• Subtopic: Técnicas artísticas

An inspiring sourcebook for art students and hobbyists at all skill levels, this guide provides a wide variety of subjects and ideas for sketching. More than 140 of author Frank J. Lohan's own drawings illustrate a variety of topics in a half-dozen categories: nostalgic scenes, old engravings, atmospheric effects, photographs, landscapes, and life itself. Subjects range from barns and covered bridges to birches and evergreens and from desert to seaside settings.
In each section, Lohan offers an account of how, when, and why specific events, places, and people sparked his imagination. Each of his drawings includes partially finished details that illustrate how to achieve the desired visual effects.

1: Nostalgic Subjects

Things and places of the past are the ingredients of many a favorite painting, sketch, poem, and story. A wistful oversimplification almost always goes hand in hand with a nostalgic piece in any art form. One temporarily sets aside all unpleasant aspects of reality and focuses on the remembered—or imagined—beauty and peacefulness of long past moments. One basically provides an emotional glance at something that was, or that might have been if . . .

Nostalgia implies pleasant memories of or fantasies about things that will never again be; for instance, the security and warmth of a happy childhood remembered only as a hazy overall feeling when toys of that era are seen, or the imagined comforts of a far less hurried life when old-time photographs are rediscovered, or the rosy image of a place still loved but unlikely to be visited again.

If you travel—either near or far—you have a wealth of sketching material stored in your memory. Places that are imposing, modest, or downright dingy but still hold a special place in your life’s experience are great subjects. They are good choices because they have spoken to you, touched you, so that your rendition of them can truly be your statement about something of value to you. The way you capture such scenes becomes your personal nostalgia. It may well touch someone else in a similar manner. This is what all art should be. Interpretations by critics are relatively meaningless; the important element is what the artist felt as he or she executed the work and how well he or she feels the statement was made. If seeing the work touches a viewer’s heart, then the work is even more successful. This added success should be considered only a bonus, however, since the basic success is determined solely by the artist.

Nostalgia can encompass a variety of subjects as wide as your own imagination when tapped as a source for sketch ideas. So, once upon a time . . .

The Old-Timers

This is a sketch of a small collection of toys that probably predates most of us. It was handled with a fine pen and, for the most part, delicate line work in order to carry out the idea of softness in the doll’s clothing and the bear’s fur. Bold pen work would have created a valid but entirely different feeling.

Notice that the doll’s hair was created with relatively few strands actually being drawn. The fur on the bear was suggested with a very few fur indications, the fuzzy outline of the bear carrying most of the idea. Compare the bear with the doll’s feet, which are comparatively smooth, as is the wooden toy soldier.

Other old-timer subjects would include some old books, an old Tiffany lamp, a steamer trunk laying open, a well bucket, a horse collar and other tack, and so on.

The Old Rural Route

The Old Rural Route includes a number of old-timers—mailboxes that have seen better days, milk cans of a bygone age when people were less concerned with health hazards (and probably worked too hard to be sick), a rail fence long past performing any function, and a tree still exhibiting a rugged, massive dignity, even in death.

The composition is based on a series of overlapping triangles of different sizes, as shown in the auxiliary sketch.

The predominance of old weathered wood in the composition dictated a bold, rough approach to both the outlining and the texturing lines. A heavier pen was used here than that in the preceding collection of toys.

When I sketch a jumble of weeds and grasses, as around the mailboxes and the milk stand, I indicate just enough to carry the idea of mixed vegetation. Too many strokes make it look dark and shadowed in what should be the sunlit areas.

The four sketches on the following pages 1900 in Farmington, Michigan, now a are based on old photographs taken about Detroit suburb.

The Old Home Town

Correct perspective is vital to successful rendering of structures. Whatever method you use, be certain that you eliminate all perspective problems in your pencil sketch prior to starting with the ink. The best way I have found to catch mistakes in perspective is to look at the working pencil drawing in a mirror. This seems to magnify such problems and lets you spot them more easily.

If you are like me, you are never quite satisfied with the exact view presented by a photograph. Almost without exception I change the angle, move the “eye” to a position different from that of the camera lens—perhaps higher or lower, and often considerably farther to the left or right. This is done to include more of some element or another and often to minimize or eliminate the relative monotony of a particular feature. Artistic license is there for you, the artist, to use.

Successfully changing the point of view requires at least a little knowledge of perspective drawing so that you can reconstruct the object in the correct proportion and relationship of detail. One of the best summary explanations of perspective basics—all anyone needs to know about the subject to sketch reasonably well—is contained in the Walter Foster book Perspective Drawing by Ernest Norling, which is available in artist’s supply stores that carry the Walter Foster series.

This sketch of Town Hall Tower was taken from a ...