Comments on: Ballpoint Pen Cat Drawing – Pen and Ink

By: Cracked Refiner

Cracked Refiner — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 15:44:45 +0000

Thank you for the inspiration! This class is amazing! Like many others on this forum, I would love to see more content on ballpoint pens.

I’ve recently become quite passionate about ballpoint pens and bought a pack of Zebra 0.7 mm and a few 1.0 mm ones. It can be challenging to order these in the UK; I had to order mine from Japan, which cost me extra.

It’s strange how every shop offers Zebra pens, but not this model, unfortunately.

However, a more accessible pen that I find very similar is the BIC Crystal, which you can find everywhere in the UK at a very reasonable price. I went a step further and bought a few different sizes; I particularly love having the BIC 1.6 in different colours, but mainly black.

Please let me know if you have tried different pens and how they perform. I believe there is great potential for this medium, even for colour drawings. I should mention that the type of paper also makes a difference, although it doesn’t have to be expensive.

By: Carol Wood

Carol Wood — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 16:42:14 +0000

You may want to reserve your highlights using a white colored pencil. I used Prisma color PC938. Erase the ink where you think the highlight should be. The colored pencil will keep the ink from sticking and the white of the paper will show through.

You may have to reapply the ink in that area to darken up around the highlight but is definitely easier to darken the ink around a highlight you can already see.

By: Tracie Gaddy

Tracie Gaddy — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 23:22:39 +0000

Is something like this doable in just a ball point pen? This of course is fantastic.

By: Lucia Rosivalova

Lucia Rosivalova — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 16:30:35 +0000

In reply to Tony Hathaway.

Hi Tony,
under the video you should see the tab named “Materials”. If you click on that tab, you can see there is a link for the Zebra pens. Just click on that “Zebra Ballpoint Pens” and it will take you to the amazon page directly to the pens you need.
Hope that helps.

By: Tony Hathaway

Tony Hathaway — Sun, 16 Feb 2025 22:00:32 +0000

Am anxious to begin your Pen and Ink course with Zebra pens. But my order arrived from Blick (a box of 10 identical pens marked “Zebra Sarasa MarkOn 0.5″ ??? ) . These are the wrong size, aren’t they” How do I identify what I want for your course? Thanks Matt.

Regards,
Tony Hathaway

By: Lola Vallee-Tourangeau

Lola Vallee-Tourangeau — Sun, 16 Feb 2025 10:55:06 +0000

Where do you get your images for your artwork? I always wonder where you find such thought provoking photos.

By: Maki Cologne

Maki Cologne — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 00:33:38 +0000

Hi Matt, thank you for developing and offering this new lesson with a Zebra ballpoint pen.

Your cat is marvelous…s/he is not scary at all, I can only see CUTENESS!
Seriously, thank you for choosing a cat as the subject despite being so allergic to them.

I totally agree with everything you are talking here…techniques, style development, most difficult part of drawing, patience… I had a really good time watching the whole videos!

If you are planning to prepare some other lessons with a Zebra pen, I would recommend owls or fruits as the subject. They are such challenging subjects which require a really, really smooth transition of values gradation to make them look believable.

Thank you!
Maki

By: Maki Cologne

Maki Cologne — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 23:41:53 +0000

In reply to Buddy. My pleasure! Thank you so much for your very kind words. Hope you will be happy with your own drawings with this pen!

By: Teri Pope

Teri Pope — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 23:26:30 +0000

Hello Matt,

Me again. I used a small dull crochet needle for indenting and it worked wonderfully.

Teri\

By: Anne Wijkamp

Anne Wijkamp — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 15:03:17 +0000

It’s nice to see this little course on drawing with ballpoint pen! I made a few drawing with ballpoint pen myself. A tip to minimalise the blobs of ink that comes out often, is I like to have a scrap piece of paper next to my work. Sometimes you can see those blobs on the tip of the pen. When you see them or when you expect them coming, you can smear them off by making some marks on that scrap piece of paper. You can’t get rid of them completely, but that’s how I minimise them and sometimes you can hide the blobs by making the surroundings a bit darker in your artwork. Just blend them in.
Are we gonna see a live lesson series of a getting sketchy episode with ballpoint pens as well? Would be lots of fun!