“It may be hard to hard to believe but the pictures below are created using standard ballpoint pens bought from places like Staples, eBay, Amazon and, the artist says, any good office supply store.
They’re drawn by Portugal-based attorney Samuel Silva, who describes his art as a hobby. However, this is no ordinary hobby – sometimes he works on a piece for up to 50 hours
Silva has drawn images of wildlife, recreated masterpieces like Vermeer‘s Girl with a Pearl Earring and copied iconic photos so accurately they’re almost indistinguishable from the original.
For his Redhead Girl, based on a photograph by Russian photographer Kristina Taraina, the 29-year-old used six different colored ballpoint pens which took some 30 hours to finish.
To create such vibrant colours, Silva ‘cross hatches’ in layers to give off the illusion of additional hues and depth.
For Silva, ballpoint pens are just one of the many mediums he is attempting to master. However, he writes on his DeviantArt page: ‘I’m just a lawyer, art is just a hobby for me, although it takes from five to 50 hours to finish each drawing.’
Silva, who started sketching when he was two, said: ‘I started developing my own style of ballpoint pen drawing back when I was in school, in simple classroom sketches in the back of my exercise books.
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