Mastercopies in Ballpoint Pen & Photoshop

• A mastercopy is a really useful exercise to step outside of your usual technique and try something new.
• The purpose of a mastercopy is entirely about the experience of drawing, it’s not about a product!
• When doing a mastercopy, you are looking at the artist’s technique much more closely than usual.
• The goal of a mastercopy is not a precise copy, rather it’s about trying a different technique.
• Ballpoint pens are great because they respond to physical pressure.
• You don’t have to use precisely the same materials as the original artwork, similar materials that get a similar result are fine.

• When working on the mastercopy, ask yourself what you notice about the original drawing?
• Pentel makes archival ballpoint pens.
• Studying art history in art school.
• Making a mastercopy can feel like a very foreign experience.
• Being a concept and character artist is in some ways doing a mastercopy.
• Drawings are brttrer for making mastercopies than paintings because in a drawing you see all the mistakes; in paintings many of the layers are covered over.
• Drawings make it a lot easier to see the artist’s process.
• Looking at X-rays of a painting to understand the layers.

Mastercopy Images

• All mastercopy drawings
• Animal drawings
• Figure drawings
• Illustrations
• Landscape drawings
• Portrait drawings
• Still life drawings
• Surreal drawings

Art Supplies

• Sakura Gelly Roll Pen, White
• Tombow MONO Drawing Pencils
• Bic Ballpoint Pen
• Rembrandt Paper, Industrial Grey
• Faber-Castell Dust-Free Eraser

Artists Mentioned

• Head of an Angel, Albrecht Dürer
• Sketch of David with his Sling, Michelangelo
• Mia Rozear‘s ballpoint pen drawings
• Parmigianino
• Artemsia Gentileschi
• Edgar Alwin Payne
• Vincent van Gogh
• Jacopo Tintoretto
• Domenico Ghirlandaio