A love letter to Pen and Ink

I’m an artist, I like to make beautiful things. My favorite thing to make is oil paintings. And oil paints are so forgiving because if I don’t like something in my painting I can simple paint over it.

But because of that sometimes I feel like I can keep circling and not get any closer to the finish line. Almost like I’m not making progress because I can just keep painting over and over until I get that perfect brushstroke. There was this one time I spent an entire day getting a singular brushstroke to be brilliant and I did … but that’s a story for another time.

So sometimes I thinks its fun to get out my pens and paper. You can’t erase with pen and ink so if you make a mistake you figure out how to make it not a mistake anymore. You are always moving forward making progress, unable to backtrack, and because of this my pen and ink drawings get these really interesting characteristics in them. It’s really fun. Like a game. It’s freeing.

My pen and ink drawings also feel really vulnerable in a way as well. I can’t hide behind edits so you really do see the whole thought process in the pen and ink drawing.

Pen and ink is so simple. It’s just pen and paper. You get the color of the pen and then can change thickness of the line, and then there is the choice of the color and texture of paper. There is something really beautiful about how simple it all is.

Your artist friend,
Jennifer Marie Keller