How to Stipple

Hi, I am Ashley. Welcome to my Art Studio.

Today, we are going to talk about how to stipple. Okay, stippling is a series of dots either using a pen or a pencil. Actually, you can do it with paint also, but today I am going to show you pen and pencil.

And stippling is a series of dots on—I am going to use paper today and with a pen, you can just simply go straight down and just put dots. The amount of pressure that you apply to the paper is going to make the area more dense. So you will have a darker area or if you make the dots further apart and use less pressure, you are going to make a lighter area. And with the pen, you simply just quickly put the nib of the pen straight on the paper and just release. With a pencil, it is a little bit different. You will use a “B” pencil which we talked about earlier in the pencil series. And the “B” pencil is a softer pencil. So it is going to make a darker mark. If you use an “H” pencil, you are really not—I mean you can use “H” pencil but it is not really going to show up on the paper. So this, I am using a two “B” pencil and with a pencil, it is a little bit different than a pen. You put the pencil down the paper and you want to make a small twist. And so, if you will just put it down it will make a mark but it is very light and you can use that if that is where you are going for but too really have the mark show up. You are going to put the pencil down and just make a small twist and bring the pencil back up.

When practicing stippling, you are going to start with geometric, basic geometric shapes. So maybe you just draw a small circle, actually let us make a circle. We are going to make one circle with the dots very close together and then I am going to make one circle where the dots are further apart. And this is how you will shade your subject that you are trying to render.

How to stipple