Flower Power Postcard: Pen & Ink Basics

1. Welcome!: [MUSIC] If you could make art with only one art supply for the rest of your life, what would it be? It's a hard question. Well, my pick would be ink. Yes. This one little material can do so many things from very large opaque areas to small intricate details that makes your drawings come to life. I want to show you the magic of ink. I'm Jamie Smith and welcome to my class, flower power postcard, basics of drawing in pen and ink. I'm an artist and I also run an online community of artists called THRIVE Art Studio. We support female and non-binary visual artists with a mission to make being an artist less lonely. I have used so many different mediums over the years, but nothing has quite stuck with me, like using ink to create my whimsical floral landscapes. It took me years to find my artistic voice and style in my own artwork. I never expected to stumble upon my artistic voice by doodling in my journal with merely a black ballpoint pen. I love the challenge of using one material and one color to create my work. I have learned so much about this medium of pen and ink. I've figured out how it works for me and I can't wait to share this with you. This class is for anyone who's interested in what pen and ink can do. If you're a newbie creative, you will find this class easy to follow. Each technique builds on the next. This class is also great for established artists who just want to learn a new medium and find out what is unique about this and add it into your own practice. In this class, I will guide you through four techniques for using pen and ink. You will learn how to create studies and then we will take all of these studies and bring them together for your final project, the flower power postcard. I created this class to teach you the basics of the medium. It'll give you foundational skills and it will help you if you want to take my next class, drawing your inner landscape, pen and ink Level 2. I created both of these classes at the same time, so they flow really nicely from one to the other. I'm very excited to show you what I have learned by using pen and ink over the years. This class is going to give you foundational skills, but it also can help you start finding your voice as an artist or add to the skills you already have in your practice. I believe art is important in this world and I'm so excited to make some art together. Let's get started. [MUSIC] 2. Your Class Project: [MUSIC] You may have noticed that flowers are my thing. They show up in all of my work and to me, they symbolize growth, beauty, and also loss. For this class, I'm going to keep us on the flower theme. Our class project is actually to create our own flower power postcard. These flowers are going to teach us all about texture, shape, and form. Each lesson I will explain one way of using ink. We're going to learn about patterns, different line thicknesses, large black pools of ink and more. In the end, we're going to have small studies or practice drawings to test out all of these different techniques. Then our final piece is going to be five inches by seven inches, and that is our flower power postcard. This class is for anyone, again, who's interested and to see what pen and ink can do for them. If you're a newbie, this is going to be great. It's going to build your foundation and your techniques. But if you've also been making art for a long time, it's great to use a new medium and apply it to your practice. I created a workbook for this class called the Flower Power PDF. This is in your projects and resource section of the class below. You can print it out, or you can view it online and follow along in your own journal or sketchbook. The basic materials for this class are pen, ink, [NOISE] and paper. But there are so many different types of pens, inks, and paper that you can use. I did make a whole video on materials to explain this all in full. The next video I will go over your material options. See you there. 3. Your Class Materials: [MUSIC] I wanted to make a video specifically about materials. There are so many different pens, inks, and papers you can use. In this video, I wanted to share the options that I use, but you need to know there's no wrong approach. It is best to experiment with as many different materials as possible to find what you really love to use. In my work, I use a mix of pens to get my highly detailed areas, but I also use large black pools of ink. In that, I use an inkpot and I paint these areas in. I wanted to show you the materials I use. Let's focus on watercolor paper. I like hot press paper because it's smooth and the pen glides nicely on the paper. The other type you can buy at the art store is cold press paper. It is much more textured and I do find it harder to draw on, but it's going to have that look and feel of a real watercolor paper. The weight of the paper is also very important. We're going to be putting water and ink on this paper, so it needs to be strong enough to hold. You can get paper anywhere from 140 pounds to 300 pounds. Three hundred pounds is my favorite. Of course, it's the most expensive to buy. It is thick and almost feels like a cardboard. One sheet can be $40-60, so I only use it for my final drawings when I'm ready to create and sell. Before that I use my 140 pound paper. These are for all my studies, smaller drawings and anything that is just experimenting. The paper is thinner, but the ink still goes on well, and it really does hold it on. I recommend using a cheap 140 pound paper for this class. For our pens, I use a lot of different sizes of pens. I like to have little details, so I need a lot of different thicknesses. I love the micron brand and I use lots of different sizes from 005-08 and I like to have them on hand at all times, 03 is my favorite size of pen. I use it for the most outlining and putting in larger forms. Then I go in and add all my little details with the other sizes. We're also going to use ink for shading in areas. You can use an acrylic based ink or you can use a water-based ink. I typically use water-based inks, but either work. You could also get ink in many other colors, which is also really fun. I typically use black ink. Now that we've talked through all the materials that I love, I hope you have learned more about pen and ink and you will find what works best for you. For this class, the basic materials that you need are, watercolor paper, 140 pounds is great. You don't need anything fancy. Ink, and that is water-based ink or acrylic ink. You need pens. Again, I recommend micron and lots of different sizes because we want to do different details. We also are going to use brushes. Different sizes would be great to have on hand. You'll need water and paper towel as well. If you have none of these supplies, don't you worry, just grab a piece of paper, grab a regular pen, and let's dive in and get started. 4. Black Ink Technique: [MUSIC] Let's jump into our first technique of the class. This is our black ink technique. There are two ways we're going to use black ink that I find super useful in my larger drawings. You're going to see both of those examples in the flower power PDF, so it's well worth downloading and having a look. In this lesson, we're going to make a study using a black ink technique, and you have two options here. A study is a small drawing that you're going to use to test out your ideas. I do many studies before I make a large drawing. You can copy exactly what I have in the sample PDF and you are welcome to use the flower I use, or if you want to use a different subject matter like a bird, a house, a plant, whatever you like to do. But I'd keep it the same just to help you work through the techniques. I also recommend that you use your cheaper watercolor paper because we want to do small drawings and we want to be able to even throw them out afterwards. We're not being precious about it. We're going to use just a pencil and make a square on our piece of paper. Don't make your square any bigger than four inches by four inches. Each lesson, I'm asking you to create a study for each technique, so you can of course do many studies, but at least one. We want our studies to be small, so that we can do multiple ideas in one. I have created a study sheet that is actually like this. It has lots of little boxes on it because I wanted to try a variety of techniques for each one. Your sheet can look like this, or it can just have one square on your piece of paper. The key with studies, is that we want them to be easy to complete, so don't draw them too big. You want to make sure you complete them. They're supposed to be fun, they're supposed to be a chance to play with your ideas and your materials. The first thing we're going to look at, is we're going to use ink as our background. That means we are going to fill our little square with black ink and it makes our subject really pop out. The flower is in the middle, but the black ink around it makes it the most important thing. Of course, this could be something else that you draw, you don't have to do the flower. But you want that ink to be all around it to make it pop out. I'm going to give you a little demo on how to do this. I typically don't use a pencil for drawing things out, I only use a pencil if I need to be exact. You are welcomed to use a pencil, I'm just going to use it to draw out my square. You can see that I am just doing a manageable squared that I can finish, and in a good amount of time. I love drawing freehand because I think it really makes things look unique. I'm going to use my 03 pen. I'm going to start, I'm going to give you a little demo of how if you want to do a flower, you're going to do a circle in the middle. Then it's actually a rainbow shape with a dip in the middle to make a little petal. I'm going to go around the inside of the flower to make my smaller petals and just add them very organically. I'm not going to worry about it too much. Then on the outside, I'm not going to start where our petal ends and matches from the inner, I'm going to go into the inside of those depths in the small petals and add these larger petals. It gives it a real organic feel and really works out nicely. You can add, but you want your flower to look very organic and smooth. Now that I have my flower drawn in, and, of course you can take time, you can decorate it, and this is the study that we are trying to figure out how we're going to use our ink. Ink is our focus. Again, we're going to use the ink as our background. I have my water-based ink and I have actually put it just on a Tupperware container lid. I am going to use this to paint in the background of my flower. Water can help make it a bit smoother, but it is going to dilute the color. I want to do a nice smooth line. The key with using lots of ink, is to make sure that it looks nice and smooth. We want it all to become one color. I'm going to be really careful when I get to my edges. After I'm done, I can clean it up with a pen, which is really helpful. But I want to take my time, and I want to really get that ink nice and smooth in there. You can use a smaller brush and then always go in with a bigger brush to fill in your larger areas, but we want it to be nice and smooth. [NOISE] You see how I'm turning my paper, that's going to help me just really make sure I get all the shapes. I want to smooth out any area that maybe had that water, so it's a little bit grayer. [NOISE] That is looking good. When that dries, I can take maybe a bigger pen, my 08, and I can patch up any areas that were messy and just really smooth that out here. But that is our first technique with using black ink. Great. That is using ink as this background. I'm going to show you now some of my more other examples. This technique we just did, is using the ink as a background and you can see the flower just pops out. This. I've used it as a background but made it a word bubble, so I have a lot of contrast with the white in the background. This, I used my black as a background but put it into this fine shape, which really adds a lot of busyness and a lot of contrast. The second technique on your sheet, is using the black ink as shapes. You'll see here, I've used the black ink into my leaves, also my petals in here. That's going to help when you have a big drawing with lots of things going on to bring things forward and create a lot of contrast. Same here, you can see I've used black ink to really push out that inner flower there. Then this one, again, going wild, more details, I used it as shapes and the shadows of the flowers in here. For this lesson, you are going to create at least one study, either using black ink as the background or black ink as a shape, as I've shown you in my examples. Remember, you want to use your cheap paper. You don't want to be precious about it. Work small, make your studies small so you get them done quickly, and get all of your ideas out. It's better to have a few small ones than just one big one that was hard to finish. I want you to have fun with it and try out as many ideas as you can. For this lesson, your homework is to do one, at least, but again, I would love to see more. Remember, this is your art practice. It's about practicing, it's about exploring, and it's all going to help with our final project when we bring it all together. The next lesson, we're going to try technique number 2, and it's all about repeating forms in your work. See you there. 5. Repeating Forms Technique: [MUSIC] In the last lesson we played with our black ink, and in this lesson, we're going to do technique number 2, repeating forms. Basically, this means we're going to make patterns in two different ways. You will see the example in the flower power PDF, and first, we have patterns as details. This means that we're going to make details within our flower that are going to give the flower a more fun and more movement. The second option we have is using patterns as shape, and what this means is we're actually going to repeat our actual flower, so it becomes a pattern itself. By repeating the shapes in pen and ink, it makes the page have movements, it gives the viewer a lot to look at, and it really makes your compositions dynamic. Because in quirk is black and white having repeating elements gives the work complexity and it makes it very interesting to look at. Here you can see my sheet, I have four repeating forms as in the details. You can see this flower here, I have repeated lines, I've repeated little shapes within the flower to give it a real life to it and movement. I've done the same in here, I've used little dotted lines, but again, it gives that flower that long look in the petals and starts to look really nice. I've also used dots, just playing polka dots in the background, and again, makes it a lot more dynamic than a white background. Over here, I have using the flowers as repeating forms as the shape. I've taken a flower and then I've made different sizes of flower around it, different leaves, and all of a sudden now it's a really nice cluster. In this one, I've repeated flowers in different shapes right into the corner, so it's growing out of the corner and starts to look really nice. This one, I've actually kept the flower all the same size but clustered it together to give it this flower ball form. Now, I'm going to demo how to use this technique within your flower, and I'm going to do details within my flower and show you how to do those repeat forms. We're going to demo. I'm going to use this same sheet again, just my cheap paper, and I start by doing my nice little square here. For this one, why we've picked an easy form for practicing these techniques is because I want to redraw my flower. I put in my flower, and remember again, you could do this right onto your first, but I think it's good practice to repeat your subject matter again. I have my little rainbows that dip down to create my fun organic flower. We want to make this more interesting, I have used a 03 pen, and I want to change up some of my line work. Flowers often have these little seeds inside, and all I'm going to do here is do a little rainbow, no dip over again. Different sizes and all of a sudden I have a nice inner texture. Another thing I can do is just use repeating lines, and it is so interesting to me how even repeating lines can become its own pattern. My next petal, I am going to cluster lines together coming up from the bottom to create that design. I'm going to do that again a couple of times, I'm going to put in line work here. But instead of just our plain black and white flower, we are going to start to have movement and details and a lot of nice things for someone to look at. I have lines coming out of the middle of my flower. On the outside, I'm actually going to push lines from the outside, and these are all the same length. But if this one I put some long, some short, you can see even that really changes how it looks. This one I'm going to alternate. I'm going to do them all the same size. This one, I'm going do some long, some short. Maybe just to make this one a little bit different, I'm going to carry a line across and then put that one in there. As you put lines closer and more further away from each other, it starts to create a really unique look within your flower. These combos are really endless of what you can do and that's why I do love pen and ink so much, because there's so much you can do with one tool. For this lesson, what you're going to do as a one study again, so you can do multiples but at least one. Your homework is to do using repeating forms. You're going to make patterns either within your flowers. You're going to do design work, or you're going to use your flower as the pattern itself. In the next lesson, we jump into technique number 3, and that's all about line varieties. We're building upon what we've just learned. We've learned about black ink, now we want to learn about pattern, and next we go into line variety. See you then. 6. Line Variety Technique: [MUSIC] Last lesson we played with patterns. This lesson we're going to focus on our line work. With pen and ink we have to be really conscious of our line work because that's really all we have to work with here. We're at Technique 3 is called line variety. Again, the examples in your flower power PDF are really going to help you see what I mean. The first technique we're going to use is line variety as form. This is we're going to actually use different types of lines dotted or broken lines to create shapes, so that they're really fun to look at. The second we're going to use is line variety as details. We're going to use different thicknesses of our pens to help us make different details within our flower. I'm going to show you my sheet here and you'll see I have done examples of line variety as form and then line variety as details. Here you can see in my example, I've used a dotted line to actually create the form, the leaves themselves, and it really adds quite a difference from these dark lines here, to having these whimsical little spirals on the side. My second example here, I've actually used dotted lines to create the veins of the flowers as well as even some lines of petals within the flower. Again, it adds to variety and it's really fun to look at this way. The next one you can see, again, my more wild designs are always at the bottom and I have my dotted lines. I've added some vines and that sort of thing as well. I've played with dots and jagged lines as well as line dot here. Now I have line variety within my shape, so I call that line variety as details and I've used lines with dots, I've used smaller pens, and I'm going give you a little demo of doing this one. The next one I've used the same pen, but I've repeated the lines and this is the same line repeated but because it's over and over again, it really does a lot to add patterning to the flower. I love it. This one here again, a little bit more wild I've used dotted lines, I've used detailed within the flower to create this background. Again, once you get into it, it's really any ideas you have you need to try because there are lots of fun and you don't know what it's going to look like. I'm going to do a little demo for you. Again, I have my clean piece of paper. I'm using my pencil to create my little box. It's not too big, and like always, we're drawing that darn flower or whatever subject that you are using. I have my circle in the middle and I'm doing my little petals on the outside. These are going to look so different by the time we're done here. I've put my larger petals on the outside like this. We have our regular little flower here and I now want to use different size pens. This was my 03, my eight is going be really dark here and I want some of the petals to really stand out. I'm going to have my center really stand out as well and I'm going to play with what I thicken. I don't want to do a bunch altogether. I want to really spread them out and I'm outlining. The three is usually the pen that I start with to get my ideas down. You might use a pencil as well and that's totally fine and then I'm using my different thicknesses. I can do a better design work with this aid as well. It's really thick. You can tell how thick it is here. I'm going to change up my lines. Then if I want to go real opposite in the spectrum, this is a 005 and this is going to be so thin and delicate. I'm going to do these nice and close together so they have power as a group and really put them in close together like that. I'm going to do my opposite little designs here like that and I want to know part of this lesson is really seeing how you can change up the line. We've done a lot of lines together, we want to break up some lines. I'm going to put in some dotted line petals like that and our eye thinks they're full lines because it's always trying our brains, always trying to make meaning. The cool thing is that even though they are broken lines, I bet you, when you're looking at them right now, your brain is saying no, that works as a shape, which is what we want. Also going to add in designs like this where I use my line dot, line dot, and I'm going to do a broken line as an inner little petal here. Again, this is all playing with what do you like to make? What line work really speaks to you? I'm going to add this in and the different pens I think adds such a variety here. I'm liking this little guy. I do feel like there's not enough contrast happening, so I'm going to fill in that petal. I'm going to add in a dark petal here like that, but those line variety really makes this more fun. I'm going to add in a little jagged leaf as well and it starts to really come together. I got to stop. This wasn't what the demo was supposed to be, but once you get going, it's really, really fun. I want you to keep going, keep enjoying it, adding in, and building for your line variety. In the next lesson, we're going to dive into our last technique and we're actually going to start painting with our ink. We've done a lot of line work and it is going to be a lot of fun, so I'll see you then. 7. Shades of Ink Technique: [MUSIC] Our last lesson, we played with patterns and we played with different line variety. Now we're going to get back to our ink again. Technique 4. Our last technique is shades of ink. You'll see examples in your flower power PDF. You're going to see we're going to use shades of ink as details, so we're actually going to shade right into our flowers. But we're also going to use shades of ink as form. As form, it's going to become organically put into our composition. I am going to show you here on my sheet, and you can see I've used ink to paint in areas to add variety into my flower. I'm using only water and my ink, and I will show you exactly how I do this to create different shades of gray to really shade in my flower. You can see here I've added more shading all around the outside and it really pops out that flower in the middle. Here I've used shades of ink and I put it in the background again to pop out that white. Now these are shades of ingus form, and this is the one I'm going to demo. Actually, I put down ink before and then drew into it. We have over here, I draw and then I shade, and here I actually use the ink to tell me what my composition's going to look like, and I will show you that. This one, I have a big ink spot in the middle and I've drawn my flower around it. In this one, I've actually just painted very organically with my paint brush and then built my flowers out of it. I'm going to give you a little demo on how to do this. I have my paper and I'm on my last technique, I have my little square, and I want to do the technique as form. I'm going to have a lot of water on my brush, see how much water is on my brush. I want to drip. I want to see what happens if I let it play. I can add more ink and I can just allow it to be very organic. I can put ink into it. I like my little drops, so I'll go back in here, really water it down and try to get some drops happening. There we go. If I'm putting this much ink on the paper, it's going to take a while to dry. This doesn't really work if you want to get right to it. I like to do a bunch of these and leave them to dry, which is what I did last night and I'm going to show you. I have let this dry completely. Now, this is my dried. I did this ink last night and I just let it dry, and I really love how the ink starts to pool and we get these little shapes in it, and now this is going to dictate my drawing. I want this to be the inside of a flower because it is a nice perfect dot, and I really love that. I'm adding my little petals in here. Again, I'm going to go and add my details I've learned, this class, and just play. This, I'm not going to draw right into this area because it is so dark. I think a lot of my drawings will be lost. I want to draw out of it. I want to use it as this base, this fun form that's coming out. I'm going to take a leaf and go right out of it like that. This is going to be this mess, this organic leaf pile. We're going to add leaves in there, you could have added flowers. I want to think about all the shapes I've learned, putting in some dots. These dots are really fun. They're from the ink, but I can actually add more and make it really intentional. Again, it feels almost like doodling. That's why I love this process so much because when I was young and just on the phone, I would draw flowers while I was sitting and talking, and that is what I get to do now for my job. Just play with the composition. We're going to continue to just build out of these ink shapes. This light gray, I like the idea of flowers being clustered in it. This is a one pen, so you can see it's quite thin. I always find when something is thin, we need to do quite a few to give it power. I'm going to keep adding flowers. Also remember that these are your studies, so this is about learning what you want to do for your final projects to your final drawing. What I mean by that is that things don't need to be perfect. You can see in here that I'm going quite quickly. If this was my finished drawing, I would take much more time. I want to see what does it look like to have clusters of ink into this gray area. The thing when you use ink as form and you allow it to dictate your home position, it can create a very organic look, but it also means that you have to figure out the composition. This big dot here breaks up the composition, so I'm actually going to make this into a leaf. I can color this in with my pen like this, but I can also get my paint brush and fill this in with black ink, which is a lot quicker and does really help the process. But I do find this helps planning it out. This one as well, I think I'm going to make that into a leaf again just using the ink I want, but not letting it totally take over my whole composition. Then I can have my flower come right out of that. I want to clean these up with the black ink. I find what I do love is that if I ever make a mistake in this medium, I always can fill it in with black ink. You got to make sure you keep your white paper very clean and white, and if you don't, then you need to put a leaf on it, cover it up if you need to. I can also as part of this lesson, we're talking about using black ink as shading. I'm going to use a lot of water in this black ink, and I'm going to shade in these little leaves here. All of these techniques, I've separated them out to help in the teaching of this class, but I use every single one of them in all of my drawings. You're going to definitely continue to use them all, even if it's not what you set out to do. This study, I'm going to consider it basically done. I've seen now how this composition works. I think I'll add maybe another flower in here. Again, it's a study so I can block it in and think, yeah, I like that. I can see how the ink is starting to move. I find that interesting. Again, I'm learning a lot while I do this. Try out your ideas and use ink and play with the ink as form but also as shading. To recap, for this lesson, you're going to create at least one study again with our last and final technique. You're either going to use shades of ink or you're going to actually use, like I did in the demo, where the ink becomes the form of the whole composition. It's totally up to you. Again, as I've said, I use it all. You can mix and match within the study. In the next video, I am actually going to demo how you're going to do your final project, your flower power postcard. I will see you there. 8. Your Flower Power Postcard: [MUSIC] You've literally done all the hard work, and now this is the fun lesson. It all comes together for our final piece of art. Your project is called a flower power postcard. You don't literally have to mail your artwork, but you can. What a lovely thing to get in the mail. The key here is I only want you to do this piece five by seven inches. I find it's so easy to pick a big piece of paper out of the pile, and it takes way too long to complete. It becomes a bit discouraging rather than fun. I want us to have a win, we're going to do a drawing that's five by seven, and you could always do more. Smaller can be better, sometimes, not all great art is massive. What we're going to do is I like to set creative constraints for myself. I like to have a challenge. It's really hard to bring out a plain piece of paper and just make art. I want you to create a drawing that includes every technique that we have worked on together. You've already done four studies to do this, so it's all about just combining your four studies. You're welcome to add in more, you're welcome if you did more studies to keep putting in as many elements as you can, but at least four. You're going to take your studies and you're going to put them all together. I've included examples in your flower power PDF to show you how I put them together into my final project. For the flower power postcard final project, I put together one that is ink as background. You'll see I made this speech bubble with the flower and put it as black ink to pop that flower. I picked pattern as detail, so I took my flower and repeated the elements here. I also wanted to do a lot of line variety. You can look in here and you see different thicknesses and also little details within the flowers themselves. This one has all these lines coming out of it. I then wanted to use my ink and do shades of ink as details. You can see in here I have ink inpainted into the leaves. My second example is a very different feel. But what I love so much about pen and ink is even with these techniques, things can look so different when they're put altogether. Black incus shape, I started to use these black inks as shapes to build off of. Pattern as details, I have added a lot of patterns within each flowers to bring them to life. Line variety. I have a lot of different line variety happening in here. I used multiple sizes of pen. Then shades of ink as formed. This one I did the technique where I put all the ink down, let it dry overnight, and then drew into it. It became really the dictator of the composition. Now I'm going to demo how to start this process from start to finish. The first thing you're going to do is actually pull out your studies. These have created now a little menu for you. I know I have a lot here. You may only have four, but that's okay. We want to put those altogether. You also have your PDF that you can use to refer back to and look at the ideas there. I have my menu, and I have looked at this, and I have actually created a nice little sketch. Again, I've used pencil, it's very quick, and I went through my studies and decided on the ones that I really wanted to spend time and put it in here. You might not even be able to see this very well because it's so light, but just to show you how quick it is. This is going to become my guide. I can put away my studies, I have my guide now is my drawing, and I have my blank piece of paper, five by seven. I don't want to do it very big. What I'm going to do is I'm actually going to pull out my 0.3 pen and I am going to draw in all of the main shapes, because then I want to do all my design work. I am going to take the time to look at my sketch and start drawing in all of my design work. I have my flowers. [MUSIC] Now, I have all of my shapes in, and I've used just the 0.3 to do that. I went quite quickly because I'm doing this live to demonstrate for you. But the thing that's so nice about pen and ink is that you can always go back and smooth outlines. You can take your time and make sure that you have a perfect line, but if there's areas that aren't, you can go through and just give everything a smooth over. I like to do this too because it gives different line widths and more dynamic to the piece as well. What I'm going to do for my flowers is I'm going to do one, and I might repeat that same flower over and over because that can make it really dynamic, but I also might change it up depending how I feel about it. I'm going through here, and I'm going to change to a thinner, so a one, to add in some different line work into this middle part here. What's really important is to concentrate on getting your lines all the same size, because that gives it the power. Again, like I had said before, thinner lines, I think they become more powerful when there's more and they're more similar in size. It thickens the line, even though they're small. I also like the small ones because you can go in and clean things up as well. I'm going to do that same line work, but I'm going to go the other way. I'm going to make it really small and give an edge to the next petal layer. Again, in my sketch, I had drawn out a flower here, but I have not planned what design and line work I was going to do because I like, in the moment, seeing what really suits this flower. That's why I love doing studies because I've practiced all these techniques. It's not a new technique for me, but I'm putting it all together, so I can really think about what's my menu, what are my techniques? This middle area, I want to break it up, so I'm going to use a smaller one. I'm just going to spend the next little while making this flower look really finished so that I can decide what I want to do next. [MUSIC] I've gone through this flower, and I am at the end going to add ink into some of these petals that I have done, and I want to sort out what my leaves are going to be like because that's going to help me decide how I'm going to do the next flowers. I am going to make them a little bit more detailed, so that's quite a thick pen that I'm using, but I like doing those dotted lines, and I'm going to have dotted line leaves with them. I think having some really thick ones will help, [NOISE] and then, I'm going to do some dotted line fun, like they're in the wind, [NOISE] windy day leaves, and key is to when you're doing these dots to really decide and just get that pen right to the paper, and that helps you get dots that are all the same, so the same pressure is really key. Then I'm thinking that I need to add in a little bit more line work, the leaves are too thick, comparatively to the dot work, so I'm taking a very much smaller pen and giving them some more detail because those leaves just look way too thick. I'm going to fill in that line work so they're more aggressive, there's dark and then the thinner line work there. I'm starting to like that. I like to do little dot flyaway things, I feel like in nature, little bits and bobs, and I think that also gives a whimsical look. Again, the fun part about this process is that we're not doing realistic flowers, it's that doodle feel that is just so much fun to make. I'm liking that area, and now I'm going to move around the composition, and do the same thing, but make my flowers a little bit different, and you can follow along while I put in my details. [MUSIC] I'm now back to my last flower. I've done all my bits and bobs in my leaves, and I want this flower to balance this flower. I'm going to treat them like a pair. I have put the same center and now I'm going to add those same repeating lines that just over and over again create that movement. One thing on this flower that I don't like is this big petal, there's a funny line there. I could go and outline it, and smooth it into place with another pen, but I think actually I'll fill it in completely with black ink when I do my black ink. Just remember, if something's not working, the lovely contrast of black and white, that black ink can be added and get rid of that. Some areas of my work, they weren't planning to be black ink, but I didn't like how it was turning out or maybe I made a mistake and it creates this beautiful, clean start over, so I'm definitely going to put that in there. I don't want to put another black ink part right next to each other, so this one will have its patterning as well, and yeah, I'm getting my shapes really figured out. Now I'm going to use black ink for this border, to make it really nice dark border. I'll add in my black ink and shading there. It should be my last step, but there might be something in here I need, so I'm going to get my black ink in, see how it looks, and then do finishing touches. Now I'm going to use my black ink, and you can defer it into the jar, this is just a yogurt top, sitting with me, and that is helpful because I can add water and make pools. I'm going to use quite a thin brush, I really like using thinner because I figure you can always [NOISE] add more, you can't add less. This is a medium that, like I said, you can add black to be forgiven, but in some ways you can't go back to the white color. I have my water here, I have two jars of water with me because I do know that it will get dirty quite quick and I like to have some clean water. I have this on my brush, I'm going to go in and I'm going to add in my dark leaves here, and I do want them quite dark, so even this is a gray and I'm going to go right into the ink and make them as black as possible. The great thing again is that I can take a pen and just smooth it out. But I do think it's a nice mix of the pen and the bottled ink because you get a painterly feel as well as a drawing feel. It's a real mix and I don't like the shapes here, so I'm just going to, again, smooth them out the way I want them to be, and I'm going to go through and do all of my leaves, and I feel like this line in the middle is getting quite thin, so I'm going to actually put in line. If you're worried about line work like this with a brush, you can always stick to your pen and just go over it again, but it is going to have that painterly look by doing a line like this that I do think adds a nice variety. I'm going to go through and finish off this border, filling in, smoothing out shapes, and I will have to go over it with the pens. That's the thing, I find them very meditative because once you have your plan, you get to sit and be in the zone and really doodle away the day. Something I love to do. [MUSIC] I have my ink filled in on the border and I will need to go through and touch that up, but it's already giving it a lot of movement and I really do like the look of it. Now, I want to start going through and I'm going to use my ink shading as one of our techniques. I want to go through to especially these very white leaves here. I want to really pull these flowers to the forefront because there is a lot of white in the background, and I find the shading will really do that. The more water I use, the lighter gray I'm going to get. I also though can go over it twice or even more if my gray is too light but again you can't go backward, so it is worth taking your time and making sure that it's the gray that you want. If it's too dark, you can't see your line work depending on what it is. Here I have these stripes and I'm going to paint right into there, but I'm not going to do it on this one. Again, anytime you can add variety whether that's in line work or in your color of gray, it really does add to the finished product. Again, we are just using black and white, so we need to make sure it takes this practice and doing your studies to see what should be wet there. Again, I really want to bring out that this flower exists, so I'm going to pull more gray into these outer leaves to put it in its place and a light one here. I'm going to keep going with my brush and I'm going to pull that into all of my flowers, and the last thing I need to see how my leaves are going to react. I'm going to continue to go so you can watch me put in these colors. I've put in the gray. The ink does dry quite quickly, so that's great. They're starting to dry but I see there are some areas where I was using my brush and I wasn't very careful, so now I can go through. This is where we get that professional look. It's beyond being a study because now we're going to go through and just really make sure everything is neatly put into order. I'm just smoothing my lines. It looks like the ink was perfectly placed in there. I want to make sure my line work is really clean. On this stripe I have some line work that is broken so I'm just going to go through, and what I loved that, that created is just some thin, some dark lines right in the same petal. The more variety, the more there is to look at and people really love it. This line I'm doing right now it wasn't working, so I've filled it in. Again, it creates a different look. I find there are very few accidents in drawing in pen and ink because they usually make the image even stronger than your plan. That flower is looking good, it's sharp. The edges, things are filled in, and so I just want to go around to all these flowers and make sure that they are as crisp and neatly drawn as possible. [MUSIC] I went through, I cleaned up my flowers even as I'm saying that I can see little areas. The more you spend time on it, the better and better the drawing becomes. I also went through and cleaned up my leaves with the pen just after using the brush. Now I believe it was very clean. I have my shading in and now I have these little areas with my leaves. I think the leaves need to all be gray as well; I think that's going to really help the composition, and I see a lot of movement in here is what I really like. I'm going to add a few other leaves where I think it could use some. Again, it's just that balance of we want lots of stuff happening, but we want a nice balanced composition as well. The four flowers make it balanced and then these nice little bunches of leaves as well, and then you can balance it out too by just adding some of our little dots and designs that really helped bring the composition together. I'm [NOISE] going to add in a very light gray in the leaves. That's going to pop, but it's super light. It is very little ink and way more water. I think that's going to help just bring them up, but yes, this drawing is very close. These techniques; there's four techniques and then there's two ways of doing each, but in your drawing you almost have them all. For this drawing, I did have my plan to make sure I got them all, but I have my line variety with my dotted line in there that really helps. I have my repeating pattern which the flower repeats but I also have lines within that repeat so that's all there, and I have my black ink and my black ink I'm using as form to put in these shapes. I use it here, and also I'm using my ink as shading. That brings in that gray. It's quite easy to hit them all, and especially when you're putting your studies together that will make sure that you do that because that's part of your challenge. This is my drawing, and I highly recommend with all drawings that you give it a sign on the back, your artist's signature, the date. Again, if this is a postcard, well, how nice is that? You can write a message and pop that in the mail if you so choose. This is your final project; your flower power postcard, and I'm so excited to see what you have created and please post in the Project section below. 9. Your Class Project: [MUSIC] What I love so much about Skillshare is that students are able to share their finished projects with one another. It's really unique and I have taken a number of Skillshare classes myself and I find the classes that I pushed myself to actually post my project are where I truly learn the most. So please take time to share your project with me. I can't wait to see it. I'm going to give you a little demo of how to do this. So you want to take a picture of your work. I always do this just on my iPhone or my iPad. You want to then go into projects. So on your screen here, this is my vision board class, and there's Projects and Resources here. You're going to click this green button that says Create Project. So here you're going to see a place to upload a photo. So I just have this in my photo library. It's going to upload and this is going to become my cover image that people will see. I can then put in my title, my vision board. An autocorrect is the best. Then I just wrote a little description of what my focus is for the year with my vision board, you can write what you like about your project, what you found difficult. You can always make your project private. But I do love being able to share and see other people's. Then you're just going to press this green button is publish. Publishing takes a couple of minutes for this photo to show up, but you're going to see it right under your projects will be there. One thing I love is if I go back to my profile and I scroll down, you can actually see where all of your projects live. I find this really exciting. I'm really proud of the projects I've done in the classes I've taken. People can like it, people can comment and it's a great way to have community within Skillshare. So I find the creative life can be a little hard sometimes. It can feel a little lonely. But remember that you're part of the Skillshare community and it's a creative one and it's an important one. So I know that I am a better artist when I'm working in community and I'm participating. It can feel scary, but it's worth doing. It's so easy with online classes to start them, get distracted and just not finish them. So push yourself, get that project up, and I can't wait to see what you have created. 10. Final Thoughts! : You did it. We made it. I cannot wait to see your work. I am so proud of you. This class is a process. It's for trying new materials and creating art. It can be really up and down when you're trying something new but it's really to teach you about using studies. There are tool to be more creative and be less intimidated by a blank page. Now you have learned the basics and the foundations of pen and ink. You can create anything you want at this point. I have created a Level 2 class that takes you through all of these skills and then adds onto them where we think more about the concepts of our work. It's called Drawing Your Personal Landscape, Pen and Ink Level 2. We will work bigger, we will use a personal photograph to help us create composition, and you'll create a personal symbol together. In the end, we will have a unique piece of art that's all about you, just the way art really should be. Thank you for taking this class with me. You have got the basic foundation for us to move forward. Please make sure you post your finished drawing in the project section below and I'd love to known what techniques you included in that drawing. I'm also on Instagram @JAMIESMITHSTUDIO. I would love to see your progress and your creative work as well. Feel free to tag me and follow me there and send me a little note, and tell me how it all went. It really pushes me to keep making classes. If you're a female artist, I also run a community for visual artists who support one another and you can found us @THRIVEARTISTNETWORK. We have an online community and you can join with tons of resources, business skills, and become friends with other working artists. It doesn't have to be lonely, I promise. Thank you for your hard work and I hope you've enjoyed this wonderful medium of pen and ink, and doing this work together. Your work is important and I thank you for making it with me.