Ink Sketchbook Drawing Exercise To Increase Your Skill Level

*Update (12-12-18): I have worked a little more on this ink drawing by increasing the dark values.  It is a repeat and is not nearly as nice as the first sketch.  

A Drawing Exercise to Sharpen Your Skills

This drawing exercise is helpful in practicing value scales.  You might like the outcome better than plain value scales.

This ink sketchbook drawing exercise caught my eye on Pinterest and I tried it.  The results gave me such a rush that I did it twice so far and I expect that I will do it over and over.

Ink Sketchbook Drawing Exercise to Practice Value:

To do this ink exercise follow these steps:

1. Draw random circles on the page.  This will be your top layer, so make these circles the largest.
2. Draw more circles behind those circles
3. Repeat these steps until you have at least three layers.
4. It helped me to number the layers until I shaded them to tell them apart.
5. When shading the layers start with the furthest away and make this layer the darkest.

A Favorite Pen to Use for Drawing

For this exercise I used the Pilot V-ball extra fine in blue.  This pen used to be my all time favorite and I was reminded why as I worked on this.  It has been a long time since I have used this pen, but I found an old one among my other supplies and I wore it out so ordered a box of them.

Now I am using it as much as my new favorite; the uni-ball Vision Elite.

It is juicy and makes a very fine line that is waterproof after it dries.  Also it is cheap.  It comes in black, blue, red and green, but I only use the blue and the black.

New Resource Page 

This pen and all my favorite art supplies will be included in an upcoming resource page.  If you want to be alerted when this page is published, sign up for the newsletter!

Do you have a favorite pen?  If so mention it in the comments – I would love to know.