#164 - Some Fantastic Books - Some Free - On Drawing With Pen And Ink
Drawing Tutorial
This tutorial is about learning by digitally re-inking a masterpiece. Here, I did it with a Joseph Clement Coll illustration
ince Inktober is around the block, I wanted to share some fantastic books that teach you how to draw in pen and ink. (You could do Inktober or any other October challenge that now exists using my workbook ; choose a subject based on the prompt to tackle through memory drawing and warm up by doing a memory drawing from that reference.)
I will start with a brief history of illustration for reproduction and then present a few books on drawing with pen and ink—some free—that came from that school.
The art in the books is sometimes stunning, and they are worth owning for that reason alone. I highly recommend you check them out.
A Brief History Of Pen Drawings For Print Reproduction
First, a bit of history. Daniel Vierge revolutionized the reproduction of illustrations, as Wikipedia says.
Photography was invented, but the printing presses were not yet sophisticated enough to print photos. Illustrations were copied onto woodblocks for engravers to engrave.
Daniel Vierge started out working to copy illustrations onto those woodblocks.
Woodblock prints were not engraved by artists but by skilled craftsmen who meticulously traced the drawings on the woodblocks and carved them into them.
This resulted in stiff-looking illustrations.
Daniel Vierge invented a process for etching pen drawings into copper plates using the newly invented photography technology.
Suddenly, the drawings did not need to be so stiff. There wasn’t a middle-man involved, an engraver. Artists could let loose with expressive, dynamic lines in their illustrations, and they could reproduce them in print!
This set off an age of illustration where illustrators could make a lot of money making pen drawings.
It is interesting to study these pen drawings. They were clearly made by painters who thought like painters. The scenes were drawn in pen, but the artists clearly solved composition problems the way they would for paintings.
Painting with a pen.
They knew how to make beautiful abstract tonal compositions in paint, and now they did it in pen and ink, probably for a lot of money. They would rather be painting, so the pay for pen drawings must have been good.
It attracted extremely skilled artists like Franklin Booth and Joseph Clement Coll.
I am telling you this because the books I mention below are all written by artists who come from that school of illustration for reproduction.
Books Currently In Print
“Rendering in Pen and Ink: The Classic Book On Pen and Ink Techniques for Artists, Illustrators, Architects, and Designers - by Arthur L. Guptill”
amazon.com — Penguin Random House
If there is one book on pen and ink drawing you want to own, this one is it.
“Drawing In Ink: Drawing For Reproduction By Harry Borgman”
Although this book seems out of print now, it can be bought relatively cheaply secondhand, at least at the moment. It is worth owning because I found information in it that I didn’t find elsewhere.
Free Books In The Public Domain
Since the reproduction method of pen drawings through photographic etching was invented around 150 years ago, there have been great books on drawing in pen and ink written by great masters of the medium that are now in the public domain, free to download.
I haven’t read them all yet, but browsing through them, the stunning images will convince you that you are in good hands when learning pen and ink drawing.
These books can be downloaded in PDF form, which I suggest you do. You don’t know if files will be available online forever.
If any of these links ever stop working, contact me.
Let’s start with this one:
“Pen Drawing, An Illustrated Treatise by Charles D Maginnis”
archive.org — Project Gutenberg
The Project Gutenberg file is the original source. Just look at the illustrations in the book! It’s worth checking this book out for that alone.
I wanted to start with this book also because it is the only one provided in HTML. HTML is easy to read online, so it gives you an easy entry into what these books are like. The others are best read as PDFs, but the files are large, and the PDF readers struggle to render them quickly. Still, it is more than worth the wait.
“With Pen And Ink By James Hall”
A book with 21 pen drawing exercises.
“Elements of pen-and-ink rendering, rendering with pen and brush by The International Library of Technology”
“Sketching without a master by Brown, J. Hullah”
“Rendering in pen and ink; instruction paper by Gregg, D. A. (David A.)”
Just look at the glorious pen drawings in this book!
“Pen Drawing And Pen Draughtsmen By Ioseph Pennell”
“The Art Of Pen Drawing by G. Montague Ellwood”
“Theory and Practice of Pen-Drawing by Fowler, M. B. O.”
That’s it!
Let me put it like this: You can either go onto social media or open one of those books and learn something about pen drawing or get inspired to start drawing after seeing these wonderful pen illustrations.
This gives you something to read to practice pen and ink drawing during Inktober!