Saturday, January 06, 2007

following orders

It's funny how sometimes an object can dictate how, and what you will use, to draw it. For example, this perfume bottle was never going to look like this. I was never going to use pencil and ballpoint. I don't believe I have ever used pencil with ballpoint in a picture before. It had never occurred to me to put them together. But the combination of the metal and glass of this perfume bottle just seemed to cry out for these two mediums. I'm still not even sure that it works but I just did what I was told.

(Just a thought; I do have a set of drawings on Flickr that are just ballpoint and pencil and I think they look pretty good together - as a set. Take a look by clicking here.)

13 comments:

Teri said...

Another beauty Andrea! The values are perfect. Gosh, you get everything so symetrical.

mrana said...

I'm already constantly amazed at your use of the ballpoint -- it had never occurred to me that using it for drawing could result in such beautiful illustrations. This combination of the two is quite perfect!

nik said...

I can not believe that someone can do so thin lines with a ballpen. Respect. It looks like light shadings with a colored pencil.

clearart said...

A Happy New Year.

The smooth feeling of quality touch.
The appearance to which they are collected is interesting.

Anonymous said...

I feel the same about a subject dictating a medium. And what a good idea it is to experiment and see if it works -- i say YES. Yes to the half pen / half pencil drawing. Another beautiful one, Andrea.

Jane LaFazio said...

ballpoint pen. just amazing. it makes me nervous just thinking about it. Wonderful drawing, and it is a gift to let the object dictate how it wants to be drawn. Trusting our instincts and believing in our intuitive abilities.

andrea joseph's sketchblog said...

Cheers guys!

I kind of think it works. It's growing on me!

Teri - I'm glad you said it's symetrical, I didn't think it was! I'm a bit obsessive about that too - don't know if you'd noticed!!

Jane - I like that; "Trusting our instincts and believing in our intuitive abilities". I'd never thought of it in that way but I guess it is about trusting our intuition.

Thanks everyone for your comments AND ballpoint is very under-rated you know!

Bill Z said...

I love your touch with both pencil and ballpoint - and its cool and surprising to see them together

andrea joseph's sketchblog said...

Cheers Bill!

Anonymous said...

The bottle is beautiful, but the flickr page really impressed me! The little previews together are a one gorgeous picture!

Anonymous said...

Wow - what a fabulous combination. And the flickr set is a beauty - thanks!

andrea joseph's sketchblog said...

Cheers guys!
I like the Flickr set too - can I say that??!

Alison said...

I love your purse series - and your alarm clock is amazing.