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August 23, 2012 8:04 AM   Subscribe

SLDA Art, with a ballpoint pen.
posted by TrinsicWS (21 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
What.
posted by phunniemee at 8:13 AM on August 23, 2012 [1 favorite]


Shallow Land Disposal Area? St. Louis Dietetic Association?

Incidentally, that is not "Girl With Pearl Earring". That is "Scarlett Johansson as Girl With Pearl Earring". Which is roughly the difference between crab and krab.
posted by Egg Shen at 8:16 AM on August 23, 2012


Oh, "Single Link DeviantArt". Carry on.
posted by Egg Shen at 8:17 AM on August 23, 2012 [2 favorites]


Everyone's a technician.
posted by cmoj at 8:18 AM on August 23, 2012


I just don't see how you get those vibrant colors with ballpoints, especially on the Red Haired Girl. Amazing.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:18 AM on August 23, 2012


I always did love doodling in ballpoint pens but I always stuck to monochrome, these colored ones are something amazing. You can actually get a pretty large amount of dynamic range between light ant dark out of a single cheap pen, they totally deserve more respect as a medium. Although, not those newfangled gel ink pens that everyone seems to love. A pox upon you gel pens.
posted by cirrostratus at 8:19 AM on August 23, 2012 [1 favorite]


a recent photorealism post
posted by desjardins at 8:24 AM on August 23, 2012


The artist claims that he's using Bic Cristal Pocket Scents, which are fruit scented. These pictures must initially be fairly odorous.
posted by zamboni at 8:32 AM on August 23, 2012 [1 favorite]


He describes himself as "patient". Frankly, I can't think of a word strong enough to describe just how patient he must be.
posted by MHPlost at 8:47 AM on August 23, 2012 [2 favorites]


I just don't see how you get those vibrant colors with ballpoints, especially on the Red Haired Girl. Amazing.

The ink is already a pretty saturated colors, mixing them together with the plain clean white of the paper will go a long way towards getting that warm glowy vibrance. I imagining planning one of these drawings is kind of like planning a watercolor: the important thing to know from the start is what areas to leave white or only faintly colored.

What I really wonder is how on Earth did the artist get that solid amount of coverage without smudging the hell out of everything.
posted by cirrostratus at 8:48 AM on August 23, 2012 [2 favorites]


Here's the actual photograph of the redheaded woman that the artist has copied.

I always feel a bit conflicted about these exercises. It's kind of jaw dropping technical ability, but using it to just reproduce photographs seems like hiding your light under a bushel.
posted by yoink at 8:57 AM on August 23, 2012 [1 favorite]


I like it, and it's an impressive amount of detail for 8 by 9 inches, but I think I'm prefer something a little bit more 'painterly' with a few more actual pen strokes visible
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:06 AM on August 23, 2012


I'd love to see a tutorial on this. Ballpoint pen ink is Satan's congealed sputum and I couldn't draw a one-inch smooth line with it under pain of death.
posted by Metroid Baby at 9:24 AM on August 23, 2012 [1 favorite]


Yoink, thanks for posting the original. It is interesting to see where the artist has drawn in details not present in the original.
posted by hellphish at 9:51 AM on August 23, 2012


I felt like jumping on the "slavishly copying somebody else's photograph isn't exactly original art" bandwagon but then I remembered I spend all my time playing computer games and sitting around like a sprouted potato.

I wonder how long it takes to make one of these things.
posted by Justinian at 10:02 AM on August 23, 2012 [2 favorites]


yoink: I always feel a bit conflicted about these exercises. It's kind of jaw dropping technical ability, but using it to just reproduce photographs seems like hiding your light under a bushel.
Isn't that essentially what every trompe-l'oeuil painter ever has done? A dozen well-acclaimed geniuses spring to mind.
posted by IAmBroom at 10:11 AM on August 23, 2012


Isn't that essentially what every trompe-l'oeuil painter ever has done?

I think you're thinking of "photorealist" rather than "trompe-l'oeil." There are lots of trompe-l'oeil artists who created original images--it's a tradition that stretches back long before the invention of photography.

And, yeah, to some extent I have a similar conflicted feeling about photorealist artists--although in a lot of cases if you compare the photograph to the finished work with photorealists they are actually producing something significantly different from the source material (this is especially true if you see the work in the flesh rather than comparing one digital reproduction of the photograph with another digital reproduction of the painting.

Now, it may well be that this artist is interested in the ways in which his finished drawings differ from the photographic source. That's not the feeling I get from the site or from the work itself. It feels more like he's simply setting himself the challenge of reproducing as closely as possible the source image. But that is why I say I feel "conflicted" about it--I'm not dismissing it out of hand or saying that it's obviously invalid. I'd just find it easier to get on board if I could "get" the specific aesthetic (as opposed to technical) interest that the work has for the artist.
posted by yoink at 10:27 AM on August 23, 2012


Yahoo News has the story.
posted by stbalbach at 12:55 PM on August 23, 2012


What I really wonder is how on Earth did the artist get that solid amount of coverage without smudging the hell out of everything.

Use a bridge or mahlstick.

I always feel a bit conflicted about these exercises. It's kind of jaw dropping technical ability, but using it to just reproduce photographs seems like hiding your light under a bushel.

I poked around a bit on the artist's deviant art account; he's still learning how to put together an original composition. The fact he's willing to commit time to these technically stunning renders of photos suggest that when he learns some drawing, measuring and composition skills, his original stuff should be good too.

The artist will learn a lot more from his studies once he starts doing studies of still lives, cast drawing, life drawing and so on.
posted by sebastienbailard at 1:23 PM on August 23, 2012


I like sketching with ballpoint pens, but never knew work with this kind of finish was possible. Cheap Bics were the best, but last time I purchased some (2 or 3 years ago, around now, back to school time) they didn't behave the same as they once did. The ink globbed at the end, so that I left spots all over the drawing. And spots on my hands and on my clothes. Those pens were unusable for doodling. I wondered if Bic changed their ink formula. Maybe Portugal is still using the old type of ink while Canada/North America switched. Or maybe I just picked up a bad batch. Haven't been able to find good - and cheap, cheap is essential for doodling - pens since.
posted by TimTypeZed at 1:29 PM on August 23, 2012


I enjoyed this comment on the amazing rendering of the girl with the red hair.
I just wanted to point out the mistakes that you made:
1) You got rid of the split ends.
2) You made the girl more adorable (i didn't think that was possible, but here we are).
3)You changed the depth of field.
4)You increased detail ???!!!!!!!!!! WTF
posted by juliplease at 2:55 PM on August 23, 2012


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