Artist’s Context – Drawings: Pointillism
The nine pointillism drawings below are in chronological order of development. When I first started they were quite crude as I only had one thickness of black ink pen. As you look through them you can see the difference and development of the work using more pens and then the step up to better paper. The first five pictures are done on porous sketch paper that is susceptible to ink bleed. The last four are on professional grade paper with the drawings taking considerably longer — anywhere up to 20 hours each.

(click images to enlarge)

1. This image is where it all stated for me with pointillism. I had been sketching at work during lunch hours, and when I was posted at the end of 2018 my work colleagues gave me a small art kit with proper A5 sketch paper. In this very first attempt I used a single fine tip 0.5 Sharpie black ink pen on the very porous sketch paper, resulting in a very simplistic and flowing style.

2. After practicing for a week or two I began looking for more inspiration and sending questions to people who were creating great pieces on social media. I purchased a few new black ink pens in 0.3, 0.2, 0.1, thicknesses. These were the first game changer for me. It allowed me to try more detail and allowed more blending and shading giving the drawings more life.

3. This little micro piece is half the size of a credit card and it shows how I was able to really hone in on practicing detail with the finer tipped ink pens. One of the tricky things with pointillism is the consistency of the dots. Over the next few months my work began to reflect more consistency and it cleaned up the look of my images.

I came across pointillism during my meanderings on social media in late 2018. I immediately fell in love with the work I was seeing from various artists and so I started researching its various forms. I also came across traditional Japanese block art in the same period. When I first tried pointillism, I found that it calmed my over-active mind. It grounded me in the art and completely seized my attention.

4. This image was a continuation of the style that I started months earlier. I called it ‘Message in a Bottle’, and it is representative of our need to preserve the beauty of nature. I worked on adding more detail into my drawings at this point, and a piece this size on A5 sketch paper would take around five hours to complete.

5. ‘The Bounty Hunter’ was inspired by a work colleague. I had been following more and more artists on social media and decided I really needed to step up my game. This piece was again drawn on A5 sketch paper with black ink pens, which now included a very fine 0.05 tip pen. This piece took approximately ten hours to complete.

6. The second big game changer for my art was to transition to a better paper medium. I no longer used the sketch paper, which has a tendency for blotting or ink bleed. Now I was using high end A4 illustration paper designed specifically for ink pens, with a much smoother finish. I continued the theme of pop culture characters which increased the fun factor. Due to the much larger size of the art and the greater detail I was adding, it would take me 20 -25 hours to complete this piece.

The practice of pointillism for me is soothing. I crave the solitude it provides, and the precision required when working with ink. One wrong mark can dramatically change a piece as once the ink is on the paper there is no going back. So far there hasn’t been a main theme to my work. I generally see a reference picture that I like and I try to replicate it, thousands of dots at a time.

7. Not much to say about this one. It was an absolute blast drawing Woody. I grew up with the Toy Story characters, and I tried to bring the drawing to life, particularly the eyes. This is completed on A4 illustration paper.

8. This piece was drawn for a close friend who loves Native American drawings. I found a reference piece online and added my own style to it. It was challenging getting the face to look right and required slow and precise dot work, adding more and more shading a little bit at a time. Overall, this piece took approximately 15 hours.

9. This was inspired by my son who is mad about Marvel superheros. I added my flair to it, choosing to go with the older art style from the original comics. Once again, a reference piece was used to get the look just right. This piece took about 25 hours to complete, on A4 illustration paper.