Ball-point pen art

Brains

Mechanical riding-bird

Here's a couple more of my ball-point pen doodles.

I've been investigating the longevity of ball-point pen inks, and it doesn't look good. Black ink lasts longest, red ink shortest, but any of them have to be completely protected from any exposure to UV if you want them to last more than a few years.

Roller-ball inks tend to be more stable, but they're not capable of the tonal gradation one can achieve with the ball-point. It would be nice if somebody managed to produce an archival-quality carbon-based black ball-point ink with similar drawing characteristics to the dye-based inks in use these days, but I'm not holding my breath.

The pictures get bigger if you click them.