Drawing Live How to: Pencil Base, Ink Drawing Live in Music Video

For this music video, we needed 4 portraits (one of each band member) to be drawn live during the video.

I knew we'd only have a short evening to shoot, i.e. one take per drawing. The result needed to have ink to be visible, and it all had to be executed fast, but with lots of scratchy detail.

So, with about an hour to prep the shoot, I printed out a photo of each band member the size I wished the final drawing to be.  Very lightly in pencil, I traced the rough outline of each face, so I have a really basic guide to place the line work, but keeping it pale enough not to be seen in camera.

For the actual filming, I started by making the pencil outline of each face.  Then to flesh it out, I used gel ink pens, which I love, notably the G-Tec C4 for the tiniest of detail.  Gel-pens are smear-able, fluid in line, dark and flexible, idea for fast and furious lines.  For this type of drawing (I like it for sketches on napkins and spur of the moment work) it's all about quantity of lines and furious speed.  Best done after a really strong coffee.

To add a paint layer for shading: I used a combination of tiny detail brushes and calligraphy brushes, a few drops of india ink, and a glass of water. Most of the shading came from smearing the gel ink with a wet brush, and the rest from the drops of india ink generously blended into water.

We did each shot in one take.

Music Video Featured:
'Pictures'
Pushboxer
Director: Mark Buchanan
2008