I've been experimenting with drawing with a simple Bic Original Fine ballpoint pen, and really enjoying it! I was originally inspired by a video by DrawingWiffWaffles where she mentioned that she went through a period of only drawing with ballpoint pen and she felt it helped her to improve her work due to the permanence of the marks forcing her to be more light handed with her sketching. It makes a lot of sense, right? I've also felt heavily inspired by TheGothicAlice's sketchbook tours (and I kind of credit her with getting me out of my art block tbh, whenever I feel uninspired I rewatch those videos and it reminds me of my purpose for drawing in the first place). TheGothicAlice does a lot of pen work too, often portraits, and as I've drawn a lot of portraits in the past and it's something I'm comfortable doing I figured trying it in ballpoint pen would make it a new challenge for me.
The first time I sat down to draw with the pen I was suddenly terrified of getting it wrong (which is pretty silly, it's only in my sketchbook and it's only experimentation anyway). The issue was I'd never used a pen for anything other than writing and outlining and didn't really know how to make it do anything else. So I did what I usually do in these moments and turned to YouTube for instruction and discovered Alphonso Dunn's channel - this guy is not only an incredible artist, but I really love his no frills approach. The trouble with YouTube is there's too many tutorials by people who don't know how to teach and too busy trying to be a personality, so you end up just watching them do the thing and feel no more knowledgeable at the end of it than before you watched it. Alphonso really explains what he's doing, and also the why and the art theory behind what he's telling you so it makes sense and you end up with the background knowledge to be able to transfer the skills to your own work.
Basically I entirely credit this guy with teaching me the skills to create this portrait. Also this is the second ever portrait I've drawn with a ballpoint, so I'm pretty proud of it just for that. My first one is a bit of a mess in comparison, but it obviously paid off as an experiment - which is why it's so important to create imperfect art.
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