Comments on: Biro-art - fantastic ballpoint drawings.

Biro-art - fantastic ballpoint drawings.

Wolfdog — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 03:54:48 -0800

Biro-art - fantastic ballpoint drawings.

By: NinjaTadpole

NinjaTadpole — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 04:57:46 -0800

He spends his days at b3ta and, if you happen to be in the right position at the right time of day, he takes requests. And yes, it's just a biro and some paper. Extraordinary.

By: Acey

Acey — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 05:01:10 -0800

Haha, my personal favourite. Stunning stuff.

By: NinjaTadpole

NinjaTadpole — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 05:01:46 -0800

best

By: Gator

Gator — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 05:17:06 -0800

Some of these are really great. The little details are hilarious. "Acme Otter Suit." The Death of Penguins riding a jolly walrus. The cloven feet of Devil Duck. I got bored with all the "ant" ones, though.

By: Jimbob

Jimbob — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 05:20:49 -0800

Wow, they look like old engravings.

By: crunchland

crunchland — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 05:27:26 -0800

If you can coax him into putting that cow porn up as a t-shirt, I'd buy one.

By: Faze

Faze — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 05:33:40 -0800

Speaking as someone who helped pioneer this medium back in the 1960s and 70s, I acknowledge this artist's excellence, while at the same time, pointing out that he is not really challenging the medium. The shapes and strokes and modelling he achieves are the easiest effects to do with a ball point pen, or biro. The mode of caricature, the breakup of the page, and the range of values are all very comfortably done and correspond to the roll of the pen over the paper, swiveling at the arc of the palm. He should recognize that these broad caricatures have been done before with biro. What he needs to do now is to bring the medium to bear on the realistic human face and figure. Realistic depictions of human beings and their clothing are a struggle in ball point, but the person who does it successfully will have accomplished something new and potentially transcendent.

By: Wolfdog

Wolfdog — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 05:40:02 -0800

Inhuman Pyramid faq ...... This drawing took seven months to complete and is my largest and most complex drawing to date. ...... Drawn as usual on sheets of A4 printer paper, Inhuman Pyramid took 41 seperate sheets to complete, and three weeks to assemble in the computer. Previously to this the most sheets I'd used on a picture was eleven on From Heaven to Hell ...... The full sized assembled picture is over two meters tall and a meter and a half wide - that's six and three quarter feet high by five feet wide.

By: TheDonF

TheDonF — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 06:18:04 -0800

Otter Penguin is strangely cool.

By: NinjaTadpole

NinjaTadpole — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 07:11:36 -0800

Faze: if he's around on monday, I'll give him a challenge.

By: Faze

Faze — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 09:52:03 -0800

Here's a couple of my biro drawings from the early seventies. Not great, but it was an effort to pull out of the caricature trap...

By: Blue Stone

Blue Stone — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 11:00:05 -0800

I'm sure he could make money making a poster of his Inhuman Pyramid.

By: JoKeR

JoKeR — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 11:04:21 -0800

...bring the medium to bear on the realistic human face and figure...

Is an elfin face and figure good enough?

By: persona non grata

persona non grata — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 16:04:02 -0800

Fantastic! Makes me wish I had at least one artistic bone in my body.

By: Gamecat

Gamecat — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 18:52:30 -0800

Dave Archambault seems to have headed in a direction more to Faze's liking. I think they are both excellent.

By: JoKeR

JoKeR — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 19:54:59 -0800

In case there was any doubt, the image I included above was done using only colored ball point pens by George Barr. A larger image of the drawing can be found here.

By: Ynoxas

Ynoxas — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 22:11:27 -0800

Realistic depictions of human beings and their clothing are a struggle in ball point, but the person who does it successfully will have accomplished something new and potentially transcendent. I would assume Gamecat's link to Archambault would pretty much fulfill your criteria for transcendence. I think he easily qualifies for "realistic depictions" to the point of almost (monochrome) photorealism.

By: stagewhisper

stagewhisper — Sun, 16 Jul 2006 15:41:42 -0800

Ynoxas, I dunno that Archambault would fulfill Faze's criteria for transcendence- mainly because tracing photographs and then depicting them in pen and ink is not exactly pushing any creative bounderies. My own personal definition of art is extremely broad, but with the exception of an artist like Chuck Close, who made every daub of paint, pencil, or charcoal count on its own in his photo-realistic portraits that he mapped out from photographs, that process is closer to say, paint by numbers, than art. I prefer the originality and actual creative problem solving on Biro-Art and I hope the artist takes Faze's advice (which I think was given out of respect, rather than derision) and pushes his vision further in a direction that is completely his own.

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 11:25:17 -0800

I love this biro art! How inspiring! Thanks for yet another great post Wolfdog. (Yours are some of my favs). I love the "ant" series. Especially the pedant. Wow, Faze, Wonderful drawings! I love the one on top. Can't access the photobucket site, any other site I can look at your art? Really good additional links in the thread.