Using Inexpensive Materials

I use a lot of inexpensive materials when I'm drawing.

The Bic ballpoint pens I've used for most of my ink drawings, for instance, are the very inexpensive kind that are often sold "10 for $1.25" - though I try to get them on sale for "10 for 99 cents" at the drugstore. Of course, they are not meant to be "artists'" pens, but if you want to draw, I believe that there is no reason not to use them when you're learning to make better pictures. In fact, there is no reason, it seems to me, not to use anything that makes marks on paper (or whatever you're drawing on), no matter how humble or unlikely.

I should mention the construction paper I use to draw on with Conte crayons. Ever since I started using the "colorful" Conte crayons, several years ago now, I have used colored construction paper (most often black, or brown, but often I use more colorful paper, or gray) to draw on. I have recently been told that some construction paper is of inferior quality to the kind that I buy, and I hadn't been aware of that. What I buy is very inexpensive, though, and I get it at places like Michael's (www.michaels.com) or Mr. Art (www.misterart.com). Apparently, the kind I use is stiffer, thicker, and a bit rougher than the very least expensive kind. You must have at least a little bit of tooth to get an interesting texture from Conte crayons. Still, the paper is very inexpensive.

And sometimes I'm given Sharpie markers at Christmas. I love them. I use them on some of my ink drawings, when my Bic pen needs a little help in some area that I want to have really dark. Using them just at times, not doing entire drawings with them, makes them last quite a long time - even a year. If I used one for an entire drawing, it might run out of ink by the end of the day. I wish I had an endless supply of these.

I have often read that artists should always use "the finest materials available," and have cringed at that advice -- for one reason, of course, because I feel as though someone has been spying on me and has seen me using ten-cent pens or children's construction paper; but there's another reason, too, which is that I don't believe that artists of any caliber or step in their progress need to be told what to make their art with (unless they're taking an art class), nor is it of great importance in most cases - an exception might be when an artwork must withstand physical abuse by people and/or weather, but my subject here is confined to drawings (including colorful ones), done on paper or similar surfaces, which would lie flat or possibly be on an interior wall.

Those people who are already established, well-to-do or well-supported artists, who have everything under control, who make no mistakes that look like mistakes to anyone else, at least, and whose primary purpose in producing their artwork is in selling it and possibly in being "famous" -- Those artists should no doubt try to always use "the finest materials available" (if only because it's a selling point - Who is going to buy or pay for a ticket to look at, a drawing made with a cheap ballpoint pen on the back of an ad, after all?).

But how many people who draw (there are probably millions of us) really expect to sell many, or any, of their pictures (as originals, at least - prints of pictures done with inexpensive materials would be easier to sell, I would suppose). How many people who are out there drawing, no matter how serious they are about becoming very good at what they're doing, are really going to be rich and famous? (How many even really want to be? Many would like to be left alone to draw their pictures and to live the simple life, though they might well want to share their pictures with others - in an anonymous, or semi-anonymous, fashion.)

Ceramic Duck at 10:07 - One of my drawings made with Conte crayons, on purple construction paper

I would guess that the majority of people who paint or draw (including myself) do so for one main reason: because they love to make pictures, and for them the high prices they would have to pay for "high-quality" materials would only make them enjoy drawing less (because they would be afraid of messing up the hard-to-obtain "good stuff"), thus forcing them to produce much less, and therefore they would never advance as much as they could, artistically, if they were free to just draw as much as they want to, which is "whenever possible."

Worrying about messing up your drawings not only tends to make you not even begin one - or go very slowly once you have, it also makes you very hesitant to try any new subjects or approaches ... anything new at all. Besides, you also probably have had little or no experience with such materials. There is a huge variety of every kind of art material that exists, it seems, so that it's very hard to know what to choose; therefore there is a very good chance that you will choose badly and get something that is the wrong color or texture, for instance, for the kind of drawings that you enjoy doing; this is also the case when you're given something as a gift - Heaven knows what the person who chooses a gift for you will think you might like or need (though sometimes we're lucky, and we're given something that's perfect for us; there are some people who do seem to know, though most don't).

Below is one of my ballpoint pen drawings of an old car - a '48 Pontiac convertible in a junkyard.

NOTE: I've added more posts related to this subject. One is called Drawing with a Ballpoint Pen. It includes more samples of my drawings done with a Bic ballpoint pen. The more recent one is called Drawing with a Ballpoint Pen - Part 2 This last one has a video I made of twenty of my drawings using inexpensive pens, mostly a Bic ballpoint pen..

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