Artist Le Vinh, a master of extremely realistic ballpoint pen painting

1,000 ballpoint pens “draw on” a teacher – artist Le Vinh

Most people who pursue art are from a family of artists, but Le Vinh confided that he came to painting only because of his passion since childhood. When he was in middle and high school, his family realized that he had artistic blood, so they sent him to study painting with the late painter Nguyen Sy Tot who lived in the neighboring village of Co Do (Ba Vi). The days of being trained by Mr. Sy Tot and the village with many painters living there laid the foundation for Le Vinh's artistic path later on.

Despite his passion for painting, Le Vinh chose to study at the Central College of Music and Art Education (now the Central University of Art Education), and then at the Vietnam University of Fine Arts (Faculty of Pedagogy), to become a teacher, not to pursue a professional painting career. His choice was simply to pass on his passion for painting to studious rural children, and at the same time to be able to live with his passion for painting.

Teacher - artist Le Anh - Photo: Dinh Trung

In his early days after graduation, Le Vinh tried painting with many materials, from watercolor to lacquer... However, none of them really fascinated him. It seemed that it was during his free time, when he was studying at the Central College of Music and Art, sketching with pencils and then ballpoint pens that he was fascinated by. Le Vinh realized that ballpoint pen ink had something both familiar and close, yet extremely attractive and appealing. However, at first, he only painted to look at. The ink he used at that time was just pure blue ink.

Then the opportunity came to teacher Le Vinh when one day, a student he taught in middle school (studying abroad in Japan) saw his paintings were so vivid, so he bought more than 1,000 colorful ballpoint pens to give to the teacher. From the special gift, with full ink colors in hand, the talented artist transformed and created extremely realistic works with full color gamut. Since then, many friends and relatives abroad such as Germany, France, Russia... sent him colorful ballpoint pens, which partly helped him have more motivation to create unique and most emotional artistic products.

Teacher - artist Le Vinh is working on his work - Photo: Dinh Trung

Le Vinh recalls that when he first started drawing with a ballpoint pen, he encountered many difficulties. At that time, he only sketched with a blue ballpoint pen, drawing lines and sketching. How to combine colors to create unique strokes in his paintings was a challenge. “ After 8 years of studying at college and university, I realized that what I learned at school was basic, I was taught about materials for drawing, but not how to draw with a ballpoint pen,” Le Vinh confided.

Undaunted, the teacher - painter Xu Doai buried his head in the pages, the brush strokes to research and create. After many paintings that did not meet expectations, Le Vinh finally had initial success in some compositions, with the common feature being portraits. He said, during a charity trip to the Northwest, he encountered the innocent, pure eyes of the children living in the Mong village in Bac Ha (Lao Cai), he was truly moved and haunted. Since then, most of his compositions are about highland girls in colorful ethnic costumes with a beauty full of vitality, innocent like the mountains and forests.

"Midday Dream" artwork, size 1mx130 by artist Le Vin

“Good news travels fast”, Le Vinh’s portraits and still life paintings impress viewers with their sophistication and meticulousness down to every centimeter in each stroke. Le Vinh admits that drawing with a ballpoint pen is not only difficult but also time-consuming, because it takes a lot of effort to paint a large painting, a 1.5m painting.

For Le Vinh, the most memorable and impressive painting of his is the portrait of his father - a 1/4 disabled veteran with a long beard drawn as a gift for him on the occasion of the War Invalids and Martyrs Day, July 27. This was also the first work when Le Vinh had a chance to draw with a ballpoint pen, and it was also the work he put the most effort into, with the highlight being the white beard drawn by the talented artist in the most vivid and realistic way. This painting was later displayed in many different exhibitions and was highly appreciated by the art community for its materials and expression.

Creativity with ballpoint pens opens up new horizons

Talking about his profession, Le Vinh confided: “For oil paint, artists can use a brush or a large bucket to draw colors very quickly, but a ballpoint pen has a small tip, so artists have to draw each detail one by one. Drawing multiple strokes, how to set up strokes to create a vivid picture. The nature of a ballpoint pen has very little ink color, finding the right color to mix is ​​very difficult and the lightness and darkness when using a ballpoint pen is even more difficult. In addition, when drawing, a ballpoint pen must be careful to avoid ink spills, which will ruin the painting. Therefore, when drawing a few strokes, artists must use paper to wipe the tip of the ballpoint pen to avoid ink stagnation, and if ink falls, the ink will smudge. In addition to being careful and meticulous, artists must also practice patience to complete the work they are creating.”

The most impressive father work with artist Le Vinh.

Talking about the process of creating the work, he said that he had to explore, travel to the villages, meet ethnic minorities in mountainous, remote and deserted areas such as Lang Son, Ha Giang, Yen Bai, Lao Cai... Because according to his experience, only going to the field can provide creative materials and ideas. If an artist wants to draw a portrait of a Dao or Mong girl wearing traditional costumes, they must remember the details on the face and costume of that woman. And Le Vinh wants to use his paintings to promote the image of ethnic minorities throughout Vietnam, at the same time conveying the beauty and unique culture of Vietnam to the world.

After more than ten years of creating with ballpoint pens, artist Le Vinh has truly created his own name and path. Each of his paintings not only has spiritual value but also great economic value. Among his works, the most expensive painting is "Winter Baby". The painting depicts a highland baby in cold weather, wearing many scarves, most of the painting describes the baby's eyes and clothes are the scarves. According to Le Vinh, it is his love for his homeland that motivates him to successfully complete this work.

As a professional who has met Le Vinh, artist Bui Trong Du has a deep insight and full confidence in his decision to pursue the ballpoint pen painting genre. According to Bui Trong Du, art is infinite and Le Vinh is very talented in turning ballpoint pens into tools for creating art, this is something worth noting and should be encouraged. Although the subject is not really new, the material that makes Le Vinh's paintings attract many colleagues in the painting world and has become a very "hot" name in recent years.

Diligent, devoted and steadfast in the ballpoint pen painting genre, teacher - painter Le Vinh now owns nearly 300 extremely unique, colorful and emotional paintings. Impressively, his paintings are highly appreciated, favored, admired and paid high prices by many art collectors.

Sharing about the fact that many young people are starting to like drawing with ballpoint pens, Le Vinh excitedly said: “A ballpoint pen can draw everything like portraits, landscapes, still lifes… and express many unique qualities”. He hopes that ballpoint pens will become popular in painting and will try to spread more passion for ballpoint pen drawing to young people.

As for himself, he affirmed that he will stick with and be loyal to the ballpoint pen material, and at the same time wants to delve into many different topics, because perhaps with a familiar topic, but from the perspective of ballpoint pen drawings, it will become sparkling, containing many interesting and attractive things.

Central Germany

Source: https://www.congluan.vn/hoa-si-le-vinh--bac-thay-ve-tranh-bang-but-bi-cuc-thuc-post293153.html