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What the hell is Pointillism, you ask? Well, the drawings shown are created with ‘pen & ink’ pointillism, also known as stippling and divisionism. The technique is formed by using either draughtsman or biro ink pens on draughting film where dots are gradually applied and grouped together to form an image. Basically, the closer the dots, the darker the tones and the further the dots are apart, the lighter the tones. The finished drawing is then flipped over, where variations of grey/black pencil crayon is further applied to create the photo-realism effect, which I strive to achieve.
As a pointillist, I’m totally fascinated by the black dot which has no dimension, no length or width. It is a rigid, hard medium, and can be very unforgiving if a mistake is made. Basically, you don’t make mistakes!
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With pen and ink pointillism, the technique forces you to draw the foreground first and then fill in around them unlike painters who paint on top of background colours. I just think in reverse!
Now, here’s the history part! Pointillism was first introduced in the 1880’s by the French artist Georges Pierre Seurat where he used tiny primary coloured dots to generate secondary colours to great effect. Basically, I have taken this to another extreme by using pen and ink. For the art historians amongst you, Pointillism is classified as a Post-Impressionist (or Neo-Impressionist) school of drawing and is a product of the Societe des Artistes Independents in 1884.
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As you can appreciate, pointillism can literally send you dotty. It is a very, very, very, VERY slow way of creating art and is tedious and boring. The end result, however, justifies the means and is well worth the wait. I must admit that I enjoy drawing caricatures more, purely based on the fact that they only take between 10-20 hours, which is no time at all compared to stippling. Some commissions have taken well over 100 hours!
I hope you like the effect as much as I do. |
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Just click over the images for a closer look at the examples! |
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Check out recently completed works! |
