By Wes Douglas
One of the most frustrating aspects of drawing with pen and ink
is the accidental smear that results from not allowing ample time for the ink
to dry. A smear can result from an object coming into contact or sliding across
a wet part of a freshly drawn line.
I like to pencil in my sketch lightly and then trace over it
with pen and ink. Of course, I am a little bit of a neat-freak and cannot wait
to erase the grey lines of the pencil--sometimes a little too soon after inking
the line--and create a smeared line. Other times I have inadvertently rubbed
the heel of my hand across a wet line when I am working swiftly back and forth
across the drawing and created a mess.
Thankfully there is no need to slow down the speed at which the
sketch is drawn because there are a few tricks to keeping this from happening.
One good trick I learned was from an old sign painter. He would
use a twirling baton (a metal stick with a rubber cap on each end) as a brace
for his hand. The baton is placed with
A second method of adding space between the drawing hand and the
artwork surface is
A third method I have often used involves laying down a larger
circle template and then placing the desired size template or ruler over the
drawing. This permits separation from the drawing tools and the drawing surface
to avoid any possibility of contacting the ink.
Finally, there are a few other ideas to protect the drawing
surface from the hand and tools used by animators, sign painters, and airbrush
artists. They will often get a pair of cotton gloves from the science surplus
store, cut off the thumb and first two fingers of the drawing hand glove. This
gives a sense of touch to the fingers that hold the drawing tool and protects
the heel of the hand from contacting the wet inked lines. If all else fails and
cotton gloves are not readily available, then the use of a forearm or a balled
up t-shirt also make great supports for the drawing hand when placed just under
the right-handed forearm.
