ArtBistro

How To >> Browse Articles >> 2-Dimensional Art Materials

A step-by-step guide to stipiling

Find a pen, perferrably a Sharpie.

Ready the pen for some real damage. Stipiling takes a lot out of Sharpie markers, but your end product will always be more important than a pen being flattened.

Get paper, and draw out a cross-contour line.

The drawing shown isn't the one you should go by. If you don't know what a cross-contour line is, then keep reading-if you do, go to step 3. A cross-contour line drawing is simply taking the outline and inner lines of some detailed features of whatever object, person, place, or thing you desire, and making a generalized shape with the line. This line can become thick and thin, depending on how you see the object, for most, the thicker lines mean the object is jutting forward, and the thinner lines define where the object falls back into the background of your drawing. The drawing to the left is of a flower, so if you are doing yours with anything other than, don't use this as a template.

Begin shading your heavily darkened areas.

The picture to the left is of a record player in 12 views, but once again, it is just for a reference. As you can see, the heavily darkened areas are mostly just colored in, so you can do this as you see fit. But once you begin to graydate back into the lighter areas, you must spread your dots out further and further from one another, to create a feeling of shading and depth.

Putting the smaller details on your piece.

Back to the flower example to the left again, but be forewarned, this piece contains cross-hatching-which is the build-up of lines to create a feeling of shade and depth, not stipiling, which is the build-up of dots to do the same. I am using this piece as an example for the smaller details because if you haven't noticed, there is a whole lot of build-up in these pieces, and at times, it can seem to be very overwhelming. But don't despair! If you notice, the flowers to the left look stunning, don't they? If you look closely enough, you can see that all I have done is just put layer upon layer of cross-hatching lines and just a whole bunch of scribbles to create that feeling of depth we so desire! So if you think you've done too much, believe me, it can be fixed!

Putting the final touches on your piece.

Ah! And there you have it! A nice, clean stipiling work. All over completness of the composition is created by gratuitious use of the larger build-up of dots, and when you barely have any gradation in the work, believe me, if you strew a few dots here and there, it will make those areas look so much more easier on the eye. Places without dots should be completely white-like lights, or just really shiny spots. But these are rare to come by when doing things like people, animals, and sometimes plants. But if you are doing machinery-that is where some spots may be very bright. I hope this giude has been of some use to you all! Thanks for reading!

---