I’ve rediscovered ballpens and how much fun they’re to take on artist dates. They don’t act like techpens or fountain pens because they don’t create 100% black lines. They don’t act like pencils because they don’t smudge, and they don’t get erased. They’re in between. You can create a degree of ink intensity not only by hatching but also by pressure. Yes pressure. Gliding a ballpen swiftly across paper gives you a light ink line. Pressing it down and plodding it across paper gives you a stronger line. I don’t think you can get that quite easily with a techpen.
So now I take a ballpen when I go out to do sketches. There’s a lot more commitment necessary when sketching with a pen. You can’t erase anything - encouraging me to keep things tidy. The way I draw with a pencil is rather messy. A lot of construction gestures flying up and about… so practicing with a ballpen (I prefer black ink) might do me some good.
