STEP THREE
This is a detail of the finished image, once the deepest shadows and the finest details have been added. Note that some areas have been hatched over several times, with lines of varying heaviness, to add subtleties to the shadows. When shading with hatching, be careful to lift the pen between strokes, to avoid a sloppy, scribbled look. Try to also keep hatching lines from crossing one another (unless, of course, you’re using cross-hatching–this picture doesn’t). Changing the direction of the hatching can be used as a subtle way to guide the viewer’s eye through the fine details of the image, especially in a tiny, intimate picture like this one. Notice, on the rat, that the direction of the fine lines that form the hair form a backwards C-curve from the head and neck down the back. An actual rat would have more messy hair, going in different directions (especially where the vines cross its fur), but I didn’t draw it that way so it wouldn’t upset the composition. This picture is only about eight inches tall, with a simple up-and-down composition and a central focal-point, so any out-of-place line could mess it up.
This detail shows how the grass was done. Even when drawing, as opposed to painting, form is as important as line. Grass can be drawn as a lot of up-and-down lines, and the temptation is to do exactly that, but even something as simple as blades of grass will have a certain amount of dimensionality. To make it interesting, I’ve drawn some of the blades in front of other ones, and some of them twisting or bending. I have shaded them in the same way as the rest of the picture. (Note a small mistake in one blade of grass in the foreground, towards the right–the hatching has been done in tick shapes instead of clean lines. This can happen if you’ve just wiped your pen and a piece of tissue is stuck to the end. Always check your pen after wiping it off, or you will also get mistakes like this. Dried or drying ink on the tip of the nib can also have the same effect.
Once you’ve finished inking, wait 15-20 minutes before erasing out the pencil lines. Most ink will dry completely much sooner than that, especially on toothed paper, which tends to be quite absorbent. Still, occasionally there can be some areas that aren’t quite dry, and those can smudge and ruin your drawing when you rub the eraser over them. Erase very gently, to avoid disturbing the ink.
This is the final product: a tiny drawing of a dead baby rat being eaten by a hedgerow. You can draw something that isn’t so weird, of course. The same techniques work for any subject matter.
After drawing, take the nibs out of any pens you used and wash them off immediately. If you leave them in, they can rust and get stuck in there forever. So take them out, wash them, dry them, and then put them back.
Article by Socar Myles.
