Artist : ALIF KING Artist, pen drawer
AliF_King is a Senegalese Biro artist who grew up in Paris. He uses ballpoint pens to draw emotions or thoughts from contemporary events, History or personal experiences.
The artist "in constant learning", as he defines himself, invites through each work to see beyond the realism of his drawings and portraits, and to question oneself on different aspects of the identity.
From a technical point of view, as realistic pen drawer, AliF_King usually works with reference pictures. There is a part of photography in the way he approaches his creations, posing himself or extracting details from various pictures patiently found within vintage postcards from colonial era for example. He then merges all the needed elements and small details in his composition to reach the dramatic and emotional effect that may move the spectators.
Usually there is a first layer of pencil, freehand (he sometime use a grid for more accuracy but still relatively rare) just delineate the shadows and "highlights", then AliF_King moves to the most sensitive part: drawing with ballpoint pens.
Whenever he draws a person, he preferes to start respectively with the eyes, nose and mouth because, to his words, it is where the facial expressions are concentrated, it gives the soul and intensity to a drawing and rhythms the success of a creation. He draws the darkest areas first then fades to lighter areas only, delicately leaving ink traces on the paper for 2 or 3 layers until each part of the drawing is filled.
It takes to AliF_King several hours a day and several weeks or months of work to envision, sketch, ink and finalize an artwork, accumulating hundreds of hours of work.
You can watch how he processes on his Instagram profile @AliF_King.
