Patience As Art: Meticulous Ball Point Pen Drawings Look More Like Paintings

These might look like Impressionist paintings, but on closer inspection, you’ll see that these images, many of them inspired by Hayao Miyazaki’s acclaimed animated films, are actually created using thousands of careful penstrokes. Latvian artist Marite Desaine creates these jewel-colored pieces in what can only be described as a testament to her patience–each image takes about 30 hours to complete.

Besides the meticulous nature of creating a painting with a ballpoint pen, Desaine uses the direction of the strokes to inform the painting. In Into the Night, the vertical strokes evoke rainfail and the reflection of water on the street. In After The Storm and Feel Alive, they show us the swirling currents of water, and in all of her pieces, they suggest an element of motion and energy, making the still images seem to vibrate on the page.

Desaine doesn’t limit herself to ballpoint as a medium, though; she can also be found working with watercolors and digital art, though each of her pieces feature her characteristic sense of atmosphere and vibrant colors. You can see the rest of her work on her website and on deviantART. You can also purchase prints of her work over on Etsy.

Via TwistedSifter