The disadvantage of a disposable permanent ink pen is that, unlike technical drawing pens, you have to go with the colour of ink chosen by the manufacturer and you cannot vary the saturation level in any way.
Botanical painting on ebony surface
Tips relevant to creating botanical drawings and illustrations in pen and ink,
choosing your pen and ink and maintaining your pen
This page covers the following topics:
- Why is pen and ink used for botanical illustration
- Pen and ink techniques
- The size of a pen and ink drawing
- The surface of a pen and ink drawing
- What type of pen is used for botanical illustration
- Technical Drawing Pens
- How to clean a Rapidograph Technical Pen (+ video)
- Dip pens (+ videos)
- Dip Pen techniques for botanical illustration
- Pigment Liners
The banner is part of a drawing of Studies of Walnuts and Hazelnuts done by John Dunstall in 1666.
The drawing is executed in Pen and brown ink over metalpoint outlines on vellum.
CREATING A BOTANICAL ILLUSTRATION IN PEN AND INK
- line drawings have always been used to record plants
- scientific journals and books require monochrome images for reproduction and publication
- line drawings in pen and ink can describe the form and the detail in Herbarium specimens which have often lost their colour completely
- line illustrations can isolate longitudinal cross-sections or dissections of a plant and represent features in a simple and unambiguous way
- monochrome illustrations can be cleaned up using software
- hatching (used by Stella Ross-Craig) and stippling (used by many contemporary botanical illustrators) are used to represent tonal variation
- and finally – it’s much cheaper for the publisher to print monochrome illustrations than it is to print full colour ones!
CLICK BUTTON (above) to see the page (in the Botany section) which has much more detail on approaches to scientific botanical illustration – the bulk of which is done in liaison with botanical gardens and botanists.
- Biological Illustration: A Guide to Drawing for Reproduction by Claire Dalby and D. H. Dalby. This provides a detailed discussion of drawing in pen and ink and in particular the nature of line and tone that can be achieved using pen and ink.
- Scientific Illustration: Pen and Ink Techniques – Line & Stippling – April 20th – Lizzie Harper Before being able to work into tone in pen and ink, you need to be confident of your lines.
- Pen and Ink | Association of Medical Illustrators – Tim Phelps explains why he uses pen and ink for scientific illustrations. He details pens and supports he uses today.
- Botanical Illustrator Alice Tangerini – discusses some of her approaches to producing botanical illustrations for the Smithsonian.
Pen and ink techniques
The techniques used for drawing with pen and ink for reproduction in part depends on the technological process that will be used for printing.
- line – used in a very precise way. Being able to draw an unwavering line in a relaxed way requires lots and lots of practice. Aim for a slow and continuous flowing movement. It’s best to draw from top to bottom and towards you rather than away from you.
- varying the weight of line – thicker lines can reinforce aspects of the drawing or indicate part of the form that is in shadow
- hatching – to create tone – is achieved by drawing lots of lines. This needs to be done carefully to be really effective. These can be parallel lines drawn generally parallel to the main axis of the drawing. Draw the left hand line first if you are right handed and the right hand one first if you are left-handed.
- Hatching on a diagonal – bears no relation to form but is a common technique
- contour hatching is where the hatching lines follow the contour lines of the form an are effective at describing and reinforcing the form of a shape and making a plant appear more 3D
- stipple (lots of dots) are an effective way of rendering tone but it takes some practice to look effective – as opposed to a mess. Dors are often preferred by botanists as it avoids any potential confusion between a line which is describing form and one which describes shade.
- dots and dashes – takes the emphasis off a line which is present but not “shouting”
Variation in the weight – and thickness – of a line
Pencil if often used first to get the drawing right, with the pen and ink being used to strengthen the line and make it clearer when it is reproduced or displayed
Gradation is achieved due to the spacing of lines or dots – and in some cases the extent to which ink is diluted to produce a grey rather than a black ink
In a pen and ink drawing, hatching or stippling should be used to show tone and form – and are NOT ways to a fill a space. One of the most difficult things when doing a pen and ink drawing is understanding when to stop using your pen!
A great example of sustained and consistent pen and ink drawing is Stella Ross Craig’s Drawings of British Plants. She used a mixture of line and stipple to describe a plant.
Nymphea by Stella Ross-Craig
Ebony G. Patterson’s Signature Style Is Coming To The New York Botanical Garden
This summer, experience the seductive beauty of gardens through the eyes of celebrated contemporary artist Ebony G. Patterson. Known for her lavishly detailed mixed media installations, Patterson brings her signature style to the New York Botanical Garden’s landscape and galleries, in a major site-specific exhibition featuring breathtaking and provocative displays of art and nature.
The result of a yearslong engagement with the Botanical Garden to explore its collections and settings “…things come to thrive…in the shedding…in the molting…” is on view Saturday, May 27 through Sunday, September 17, 2023.
“…in the waiting…in the weighting…”, 2021; Courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago.
A multifaceted artist, Patterson utilizes painting, sculpture, installation, performance, and video to create a body of work that uses beauty as a tool to address global social and political injustices. “Patterson seduces the viewer into acknowledging a darker truth lurking ominously beneath the surface. Upon closer inspection, the figures in these embellished paper works are disembodied, un-whole,” writes Monique Meloche Gallery. “While the bright, effusive visual cues on the surface of her work suggest vivifying celebration, these signifiers point to the opposite. Their ghostly forms hover amidst a tangle of flora and fauna, plants which themselves might harbor a secret poison.”
Detail of “…in the waiting…in the weighting…”, 2021; Courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago.
The first visual artist ever to embed within the institution for an immersive residency, Patterson’s work will captivate Garden visitors with the beauty of exotic flora and garden-inspired installations – from a monumental peacock sculpture to swarms of glitter-encrusted vultures. Working directly with the Garden’s grounds and resources the exhibition will see sculptures, installations, and interventions with living plants come together to explore entanglements of race, gender and colonialism while inviting visitors to contemplate their own relationships with gardens and the natural world.
This event kicks off with a dynamic conversation between the artist and Thelma Golden, the world’s premier curator of art of the African Diaspora and Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem. Click here for more information.
Photos courtesy of the New York Botanical Gardens.
Cover image courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery; Photo by Frank Ishman.
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0 Kelly Walters April 19, 2023
