Channel: Alphonso Dunn

Category: Education

Tags: pen and inksketchingalphonso dunntutorialsdrawingdrawing tips

Description: VIDEO DESCRIPTION: I remember when I began thinking about the daunting task of publishing my own pen and ink art instruction book. I wanted to create a book I wish I had when I was just learning to draw with ink. Pen and ink drawing was, and still is, a niche subject under the broad umbrella of drawing. And in the world of art instruction books, there were only a handful I saw that focused on pen and ink drawing. And to me, they didn't provide enough content that adequately addressed the building blocks, or if there were some information it was in a way that I believe beginning learners of ink drawing would find a bit intimidating. In most cases they would jump into showing demonstrations before adequately addressing the rudimentary elements. So as an art instructor and lover of ink drawing, I decided to challenge myself to create one that would focus primarily on introducing the beginner to pen and ink drawing in the simplest, and most engaging way I could imagine, while still make it adequately thorough and extensive. But still, I didn't want to create just another pen and ink drawing book for the sake of it. Yes, I would need to cover some standard pen and ink topics, skills, and techniques but I would have to take things several steps further to achieve my goal. I wanted to make a unique contribution to pen and ink instruction. To build on what was before, not to erase or just regurgitate it. The bulk of my work was three-fold: 1. I challenged myself to determine what I thought were the utter building blocks of ink drawing and to lay out these elements extensively. 2. The next challenge was to express them in simple, clear, and succinct language accompanied by images that helped to illustrate and diagram the concepts, not just just show finished drawings. 3. Then I had to broke down the instruction to simple bite sized chunks that could be understood by just about anyone who had some rudimentary drawing skills. Much of the history of my YouTube videos bares witness to this process. It is clear to see that I have dedicated my youtube channel primarily to pen and ink drawing instruction. At the time I started art instruction on YouTube there weren't many tutorials on pen and ink drawing. Let's be honest, pen and ink is a challenging drawing medium so it makes sense that many people avoid it. I wanted to make it more accessible, more approachable, and easier to learn. Then in addition to the challenge of developing the content, I also realized if I were to create the book I envisioned I had to commit to learning what goes into the whole process of book design: I would need to learn about typography, page layout and composition, graphic design elements, technical writing, creating diagrams, formatting and book structure. That also meant learning essential DTP software like Adobe Indesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop. I quickly learned that preparing all the content you want to include in a book is one thing, but transferring all that to book form was an entirely separate process. So what we see as a simple page from an art-instruction book generally results from a long series of decisions involving cuts, edits, additions, rearrangements and revisions repeated several times over. I understood why Page & Layout Design is a career in itself. So understand it isn't so much just the WHAT (standard drawing topics, techniques and expression of concepts) that makes a book, it is just as much the long arduous process of HOW (page & layout design, content structure, sequencing, presentation, and the overall feel and theme of the book's design). Having gone through this long grueling process and seeing your end result just carelessly taken and copied without consent is beyond insulting. Endless gratitude to all of you who have supported my books: Pen & Ink Drawing Workbook: amzn.to/2CZjLVp ----------------------------------------­­----------------------------------------- Pen & Ink Drawing: A Simple Guide: bit.ly/dunnbook1