Shaun lead a ‘Rendering in Pen & Ink’ workshop for members of the Broadstone Art Society during their afternoon session on 23rd April 2024 – which was very well received by all participants.
A pleasing eighteen Society members had enrolled for the workshop, which was held at their Corfe Mullen head quarters.
Shaun gave a brief overview of his art training and subsequent creative industry career – leading to his own particular passion for the discipline of pen & ink drawing – or ‘rendering’ in pen & ink, as it was known at the Bournemouth & Poole College of Art, in the 1970s.
Starting with an introduction to the minimal equipment required, (fineliner pen or fountain pen, pencil, rubber and paper), Shaun demonstrated how to achieve the breadth of tones required – ranging from white to solid black – using just simple lines, followed by introducing four popular ‘rendering’ techniques which enables you to create the illusion of form and texture.
Having grasped the essential basics, the group then proceeded to render a supplied pencil sphere outline to appear as a globe, by choosing one of the four, newly learned rendering styles.
Following this, each artist selected an object from the still life set up and drew their own piece from scratch – starting with the pencil structure and moving into the application of black markings – to render the subject’s shape, tone, form and texture.
Everyone did really well! The group had a range of mixed abilities – and yet each piece had its very own character – amazing how a comparatively short session can result in so many different and wonderful interpretations! Sadly, I was so engaged with the workshop and roaming between the artists to guide their progress, I completely overlooked taking any pics of their work!
Thank you again to the Society for inviting me to lead this workshop – everyone appeared to be genuinely pleased with how these exercises might help add a little something extra, to their own preferred forms of art.
