The Technical Pen

by Gary Simmons

The Technical Pen features over 300 illustrations, including 34 full-color images in the hardcover edition (paperback edition is in gray scale). Although originally designed for architects and engineers, a technical pen is an ideal tool for fine artists, illustrators, and graphic artists. Whether you want loose gestural sketching or tight, deliberate renderings, a technical pen moves smoothly and easily over the paper's surface. It offers a precise and predictable line quality that can't be matched by any other type of pen. Gary Simmons, renowned teacher of pen-and-ink techniques, covers every aspect of working with the technical pen, beginning with a thorough explanation of its anatomy, operation, and care. He also includes troubleshooting tips as well as advice on choosing appropriate nib widths, inks, and drawing surfaces. Simmons demonstrates how to achieve the wide variety of strokes and stroke patterns that the technical pen makes possible--including continuous parallel lines, crosshatching, stippling, and more--and explores, through copious illustrations, the different effects various techniques have on their own and in combination with other approaches. Simmons shows how to put the pen strokes to work through step-by-step demonstrations that illustrate the ins and outs of expert level image construction, from initial pencil sketch through final inking. He explains the fundamentals of form, tone, texture, and "color" in drawings, and how to make sure that the pen strokes do what you really want them to do. For instance, perhaps you've added a layer of hatched lines over a bird's feathers to create a shadow effect, only to discover that you've obscured their texture, or maybe one area of your drawing has become too dark. Gary Simmons addresses these and other common obstacles of mastering the medium and explains how you can avoid and solve them. Gary Simmons has been working with pen and ink and the technical pen for over forty years. Simmons has conducted pen-and-ink drawing workshops nationally for Koh-I-Noor, and he teaches fine arts at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas.

Genres: Art, Reference

146 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1992

Reviews

[Michael Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 Stars: Simmons’s “The Technical Pen” is all about pen and ink drawing with a Koh-I-Nor Rapidograph technical pen. This pen provides a constant width — I.e., no flex — line as narrow as 0.1 mm wide. The author covers a wide range of drawing techniques, such as gestural versus realistic drawing, area-filling patterns, such as hashing, use of color in a drawing, and provides sufficient examples to make it plain to the reader what he is talking about. Though a bit dated in a few irrelevant places, the information is complete, well presented, and interesting. I really recommend this book.

[Stiobhard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just got this in the mail as a belated Christmas present. It was a recalled book from the Wolverhampton University Art and Law library so it wasn't in the best condition. but i was able to get all the stickers off the cover and it is the original Watson Guptill edition which is the important thing. The more recent printing that Barnes and Noble sells is really bootleggy looking and badly printed... this one the typesetting is first rate and the the illustrations are clear. There are admittedly a few images that have halftone screens that make the images a bit blurry but in general the artwork looks good. I am sorry to make such an issue of this but it really is frustrating to try to read the other edition or draw from it and reading blurry lettering just gives me a headache. Watson and Guptill are professional enough in their design to publish a good looking and readable art book. I have read this book before (from the local library) so I already knew the content was good. I think I read it when it first came out in 1992. At the time I was skeptical about its emphasis on rapidograph pens but nowadays I do find myself using them for most of my work so that is why the recent history. And while the textures are very specific in this book to those pens I think the basic principles cool apply to other types of inking pens. The Joseph Guillot nibs or whatever you like. But the intention is for koh-i-noor products and you will get the most from this book using those. But I wanted to have a physical copy with well printed illustrations to include among the illustration books on my bookshelf. This is a good resource to have.

[Gypsy Novela · Rating 5 out of 5]

great step by step of conducting intricate drawings with a pen.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must have book if you like drawing in pen and ink!