Pen and Ink Sketching
Art college drawing exercises from 60 years ago
Memories are made of this
Even though this pen and ink drawing is dated 1963, I can still remember sitting in a corner of the studio under the eagle-eye of my tutor Miss Hopwell… she was one of the hard working and enthusiastic teachers guiding me during my pre-diploma year at the Regional College of Art and Design, as it was known then, later becoming the Manchester College of Art and Design and now part of the Manchester Metropolitan University with around 40,000 students on campus.
Miss Hopwell set interesting exercises, all meant to test and tease her new class of raw school leavers new techniques and skills. Here — judging by the feint traces of inked lines — she would have encouraged the group how to draw directly with pen-and-ink on paper with no initial sketching-in of the subjects, their shapes, nor proportions with pencil beforehand which could then be erased and redrawn if mistakes were made. This was an excellent test of co-ordination of the eye, mind and hand.
Traditional equipment and materials
Again from memory I think the initial sketching was made with a fine-nib mapping-pen, using a thicker nib for the stronger outlines enhancing the subject’s shapes. The ink colour…
