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The great
French artist Theodore Gericault said that one should be able to draw a body
hurtling from a burning building before it hits the ground. I agree, if the
word “doodle” can be substituted for drawing. Even within the field of pen and
ink, there are so many types of drawing that the term is almost meaningless.
When reading this book, please note the context of the advice that I offer.
What may be true for one kind of imagery or style is not necessarily true for
another. There are always exceptions to every rule, and no relative truth about
art is universal.
What is a
virtue in a successful work may also be perceived as a limitation. An artist
who excels at bold studies of athletes in motion may lack the light hand so
necessary for drawing children. And speaking of sports—please disregard the
idea that art is a competitive enterprise that should or will be acknowledged
with trophies and public merit. Regardless of the auction value of any artist’s
work, living or dead, there is no ultimate winner or “best artist.” People who
keep the records, historians and critics, bring cultural and personal bias to
bear. Forget consensus opinion, too. Art is not a democratic enterprise. It is
my intention to set forth clearly dynamics of pen handling that will be helpful
to both beginners and artists at every
level.
With due
respect to my publisher, this book would never see the light of day if I
thought it could be a cash cow. We bring this work to print at a critical time
in history for the conscious penman (and even for the print medium). I am
seeing what I regarded as a slowly-evolving craft suddenly become eclipsed,
corrupted and finally, subsumed by the new computer technology. This revolution
has occurred in a mere generation, revolutionizing every purview of hand
craftsmanship, from medical illustration to architectural
rendering. I've already lived through this debacle in another
field—as a traditional sign painter. It took less than five years for the field
to implode after the new computer-generated vinyl letters were introduced in
the mid-‘80s! I stubbornly clung to the traditional craft, chasing jobs that
involved pictorials and complicated logos; yet even this niche suddenly became
dominated by the new dot matrix printers in the early ‘90s. I returned by
necessity to pen and ink for a livelihood, never dreaming that its existence
would be seriously threatened so soon afterwards. Basic and refined principles
of pen drawing are being relegated to historical footnotes. I feel an
overwhelming need to describe the dynamic nature of the pen drawing that I have
pursued all my life, in the hope that those who are opting for seductive shortcuts will realize what they’re
overlooking.
I know by heart the many
pitfalls and misconceptions that a beginner might encounter along the way.
Before I had any professional training, I entered the field by stealth as an
auto-didactic. This is a gift being sent back to myself half a century ago. To
my peers, I offer these insights as reference material for the preservation of
our craft.
