Use of Line in Drawing: Art Technique

A line has no width. It is a measure of length. Therefore, what we call a “line” in art can more correctly be called a “mark of a line,” and it represents the measure of length. The mark can either represent an object or the separation of objects.

Separating Line
Shadow Line
Hatching
Negative Space
Representative Lines
Grouped objects

Separating Line


The separating line divides a space into multiple spaces. This introduces geometric relationships to the scene, with individual identities to the different spaces. It also tells the viewer how the spaces relate to each other. A hard or soft line suggests the quality of the relationship. This separating mark should be treated as a space itself, with breadth, depth, darkness, and other qualities that relate the objects in the drawing.

Contour lines suggest that the fields contain different objects. They can be considered silhouettes or outlines. Countour lines can suggest form based only on important points of separation. They give no more information than this.

Shadow Line

 

The human eye uses shadows to recognize the separation of objects. We often suggest shadows in our drawings with marks, hatching which lets the viewer recognize the objects. But shadow is only one type of separation line.

Close and repeated use of shadow lines can suggest texture of the object that the shadow lies upon. Each object in the scene is separated from the others by marks that represent shadows. The shape and quality of the shadow speaks to the quality of its object, as well as its relationship to other objects.

Hatching

 

Hatching marks are often used to indicate shadow, typically parallel and of similar size. These marks might indicate texture, dark and light shadows from the material. Or they might represent some other message about the object.

Albrecht Dürer pioneered the use of hatching as a composition device in his art. He made directional lines to help direct eye movement toward important objects. A variety in direction, length, and darkness of these marks establish unique qualities in textures. Cross-hatching, lines of criss-crossed direction, and stippling don’t move the eye at all, and may be useful for smooth textures, such as human skin.

It is essential for hatching lines to relate to each other, to unite the shadow as a whole line with a geometric isomorphism. While separation objects are typically bold and unique, hatching is very repetitive, with little variance. The brain assumes that repetitive lines will be hatching, and will suggest texture.

Negative Space

 

Through the use of shading and hatching, the illusion of white lines can be used in drawing. In the example to the right, shaded lines establish a negative space. A small amount of white space establishes the objects in the scene: a boat, oars, people in the boat, and water ripples.

A balance of positive and negative space can be achieved with careful use of shading to create white lines. Advanced artists will use these white lines just as much, if not more, when drawing than when painting.

Representative Lines

 

Lines can be used to represent objects themselves. Representative lines have been used since early history as written languages because it is so quick and easy to create them. Early hieroglyphics were further abstracted from representative shapes to the quick written languages we use today. Our written languages don’t very much represent any natural objects, but portray concepts or pieces of words.

Written language is actually a type of drawing. Also, all drawing is a type of language. Each line has a representative meaning that communicates some concept. The paint splotch in an impressionist painting that represents a person imbues just as much meaning as the letter in a word.

Egyptian hieroglyphics incorporated natural drawings using separating lines and texture alongside quick and abstract written language, representative lines.

Lines of grouped objects

 

The original Latin word for line meant “string, row, series.”

In order to suggest projective space, objects must be composed in a logical order. All marks, whether they be separating lines or representative lines, must be arranged into lines in order to make sense. In all of the world’s written languages, the marks we make in written language are arranged in lines.

Marks that suggest separation of objects in a drawing likewise are arranged in a logical linear order.

It is important to arrange objects in a line, not only to establish the illusion of linear perspective, but also make the spaces morphic. If we don’t repeat objects to form logical lines, we only have what is called affine space. Affine space is like connect-the-dots, where you only have a bunch of points and possible vectors between them. But if you draw lines between the points by repeating objects, then suddenly you get the representation of something.

The Golden Mean is used to arrange objects into larger objects, the spacing of trees in a forest. It is the minimum ratio of mass to spacing by which smaller objects can make up a larger object.

The space between objects suggest time, the time it takes to travel from one object to another. Movement along this line can be suggested by the hatching. This suggests the transformation of an object into smaller objects, or smaller objects into a large formal object. Hatching lines can thus be used to suggest the creation or death of objects within a composition, as well as their relationship to other objects.

© Benjamin Blankenbehler 2012