The Art of Responsive Drawing

Chapter Three: Line

A Definition
Line is a primary means of drawing. Line produces language symbols as well as visual ones. Line: An element of art that is the path of a moving point through space. Although lines can vary in appearance (they can have different lengths, widths, textures, directions, and degree of curve), they are considered one-dimensional and are measured by length. A line is also used by an artist to control the viewers eye movement. There are five kinds of lines: vertical, horizontal, diagonal, curved, and zigzag.

 Line does not exist in our physical world of matter! With line, a forms configuration can be stated, as can the boundaries of a color, texture, or value. Abutments of planes can be shown, textures and tones, indicated, and the direction and position of forms explained as located before, behind, or alongside others in space. And, like shapes, lines, even short ones always suggest some degree of moving energy they are always going somewhere.

 In Chapter 1, lines described contours in gesture drawing, and we observed the way edges helped to express the subjects action and basic structure. In Chapter 2, we focused on the importance of edge, as indicated by line, in establishing shape and volume. In Chapter 3, we will focus on line as contour although as we will learn line drawing is by no means limited to the delineation of contours.

 A drawn line has certain given properties:

It always has direction. It interrupts or divides the pictureplane. It has along its course one or more values. It is consistent or varied in width. It has a certain length.

 Lines can also reveal personality

A certain character of line can be derived form the artists intuitive attitude to line in general (how you draw the line gives it personality). A line can show how an artist is expressively responding to a subject. Medium and surface will influence a lines character.

 In responsive drawing, the lines that denote that describe what forms like also evoke; that is, they convey the artists emotional responses to forms. As a result, all lines are partly descriptive and partly emotive. Therefore, lines function in two ways:
The first function is to express the essential constructional nature of forms and the spatial field they are in.
Diagrammatic lines measure length, width, and depth, and in location, direction, shape, and structural generalities. Structural lines more fully explain and emphasize a volumes surface terrain, and show how forms interposing.

 Diagrammatic and Structural lines scan volumes to search out their relative sizes, locations, and directions, in space, and the planar arrangements that make up their basic structure, rather than the textural and light effects upon them. Both of these lines are analytical but do also convey emotive qualities, if only in showing the excitement of the artists discoveries of direction, shape, and structure.

The second function of line is to evoke:

Lines of a strongly curvasive and rhythmic quality, often more the result of dynamic rather than structural matters, are called calligraphic lines. Some lines can seem so charged with emotive energy that we regard their dominant role to be expressive.

 All lines, are of course, expressive, but some appear to issue more from an artists intuition, empathy, and temperament than from either structural or organizational motives. All four kinds of line may be present in some drawings, and it is possible for a single line to function in several or even in all four ways at once.

Umberto Boccioni (1882-1916). Womans Head. 1909. Pencil. 32 x 39 cm. Margaret Day Blake Collection, 1967.244. 1997 The Art Institute of Chicago. All Rights Reserved.

Diagrammatic Line
In this drawing by Giacometti, Portrait in an Interior, the experience and clarification of spatial depth, dimension, shape, direction, and structure are conveyed. Here lines measure distance, estimate scale, and weave through space, as well as forms, to explain the environment in which the forms are located. Diagrammatic lines investigate. Diagrammatic lines reveal the general shape, location, and structural nature of forms in space.

Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966). Portrait of an Interior. 1951. Lithographic crayon and pencil. 15 3/8 x 10 7/8. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Victor Thaw. Licensed by Scala-Art Resource, N.Y. Photograph 1998 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

 In Toulouse-Lautrecs drawing, Le Pere Cotelle, there is again an inquiring, diagrammatic use of line. Again, lines measure and explore the general structural nature of forms. Notice how the lines move freely upon, through, and between forms.

Henri De Toulouse LaTrec (1864-1901). La Pere Cotelle, the Lithographer. (ca. 1893). Charcoal with red and blue crayons. 20 x 13 5/8. Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Carter H. Harrison. 1996 The Art Institute of Chicago. All Rights Reserved.

 Diagrammatic lines explore volume and space. Therefore, the lines give us, the viewers, visual cues about space, shape, dimension, and volume. And, because these are the issues that excite their interest, the lines, although primarily diagrammatic in function, also reveal expressive qualities. As this example shows, analytical and emotive functions of line are not mutually exclusive.

Student Drawing. Sandy Roebuck. Charcoal. 18 x 24. Denver University.

Notice how certain axial lines, as in the legs and torso, establish direction.

Class Exercise
Materials: Pen and Ink Subject: Your hand holding a drawing tool (You may use a mirror to draw the reflection of your hand). Procedure: Draw actual size. You may make a practice drawing in your sketchbook as a warmup. Spend more effort and time analyzing the subject before you draw. Lines can be continuous, if you wish. This will be different than charcoal or pencil!

 However, pen-and-ink gesture drawing can convey as much about the action as chalk can is evident in a spirited student drawing.
(Student Drawing). AnneMarie Hodges. Pen and Ink. 14 x 17 in. Art Institute of Boston.

Practicing Diagrammatic
After the gestural phase of drawing, explore the planes that comprise the major masses of your hand and the held object, and the distance separating these volumes from one another. Notice the various tilts of volumes, their scale relationships, and the shape, scale, location, and direction of any empty or negative areas. Do so by a liberal use of light, searching lines.

(Student Drawing). Laura Serifun. Pen and Ink. 14 x 17 in. Art Institute of Boston.

 Your goal in this drawing is to explore and explain the subjects measurable matters of shape, proportion, direction, and general structural nature. Do not respond to surface texture or light only the structure of the object.

 Like the lines upon a globe, cross-section lines, sometimes called cage or cross-contour lines, help to explain the general nature of a forms surface. Use these lines whenever you feel the need to further explain a forms volumetric character. In this example, the lines create a sculptural image. This is more useful with organic forms.

(Student Drawing). Harold Tovish (1921- ). Contour Drawing. (1972). Pencil. 19 x 25. Courtesy of Terry Ditenfass Gallery, New York.

 When drawing a solid form with diagrammatic line, it is helpful to see its structure to fully understand it total structure. In this way, we can better understand its mass, its location to other forms, and something of the spaces that separate them.

Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720 1778). Architectural Fantasy. Pen, brush, and ink. 36.5 x 50.5 cm. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

In this drawing, notice how the artist uses line liberally to help explain the forms. Piranesi helps to explain the structure of forms as being flat or curved through line. He also shows a volumes position in relation to others, and the spaces that separate and surround the volumes, by using hatched lines to explore surfaces and space more fully than a single line can.

 In drawing, any kind of line can perform a diagrammatic function. When an artist uses a line to locate or measure a volume, the space in which it exists, or its physical relationship to other volumes, that line, is performing a diagrammatic function.

Structural Lines
A structural line explains a volumes surface terrain by examining the surface of each plane. Hatching marks are often used to draw and describe. Sometimes, an artist can also use structural line to suggest light. A structural use of line tends to reduce attention to contours and emphasizes instead the surface structures of a forms mass. Because structural line, like diagrammatic line, is exploratory artists usually combine these two approaches to line.

 In this drawing, structural line is used to suggest the presence of light on form. We get the impression of surface planes and surface terrain through line.

Leonardo DaVinci (1452 1519). Five Grotesque Heads. Pen and Ink. 26 x 21.5 cm. Royal Collection, Windsor Castle.

Another example of structural and diagrammatic line to suggest surface plane and surface terrain (light on form). Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). Bathsheba Receiving Davids Letter. Pen and Ink. Kupferstichkabinett. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. bpk 1997, Berlin.

Diagrammatic Lines and Structural Lines

These lines investigate and search for proportion and structure. It is a drawing skill in seeing the object in a new way and relating that observation to paper. Developing skills in seeing a subjects proportions and structure not only benefits creative interpretation and handling, it can also uncover a rich source of dynamic invention.

Exercises
Diagrammatic Lines measure
a volume, the space which it exists, its physical relationship to other volumes.

Structural lines communicate

The structure of any form

 The goal of structural drawing sis to explain the structural role of the flat and curved planes of the volumes. Also try to convey the volumes sense of weight.
Kathe Kollwitz (1867-1945). Hand Studies. Pen and Ink and wash. 11 1/4 x 9 in. Reproduced by courtesy of the Trustees of The British Museum.

 Structural lines direct the viewers eyes. The choice of directing hatching lines should be one that supports expressing volume. Here the same planes are drawn to carry the eye in different directions.

 Here the lines of cylinder 1 direct our eyes along the length of the body, while those of cylinder 2 move around it, implying the existence of the cylinders unseen back. The first cylinder is seen as moving more forcefully in a direction, the second one tells us a little more about its volume.

 In figure B, hatched lines move around a form and ride the surface undulations. In figure C, we do not understand the objects surface terrain because of the arbitrary line placement.

Examples

Paul Cezanne (1839-1906). The Card Player. Pencil and Watercolor. 19 1/16 x 14 inches. Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design. Gift of Mrs. Murray S. Danforth.

 Iso Papo (1925-). Seated Nude Figure. Pencil. 14 x 16 in. Courtesy of the artist.

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). Study of a Nude Woman. GrayBrown ink on Brown Paper. 12 x 10 in. Arthur Mason Knapp Fund. Courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts.

Sidney Goodman (1936 - ). Study for Woman Holding Sheet (1974). Pen and Ink. 8 x 11 in. Photographed by Robert E. Mates and Paul Katz. Courtesy, Terry Dintenfass Gallery, New York.

Another way to convey the impression of volume using hatching lines is to show the effects of light upon surfaces. Light waves do not bend; the differing values of a subjects planes represent their various tilts toward or away form the source of light. Hatching lines can show the gradual or abrupt change in plane and therefore light.

Jacques De Gheyn (1565 1629). Woman on her Deathbed). Pen and Ink. 14.6 x 19.4 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Here structural lines by their direction explain the angles of planes. Value is created by the proximity of line. Therefore, the structural nature is defined by line as well as the surface terrain and the light falling on the them.

Conclusion You will often use hatching lines. Or, when groups of hatched lines overlay each other at different angles, you will use crosshatching marks. Your goal is to define the volume of the object in space and its curved or flat planar structures though line. Do not draw the outline of each form. Rather, let your hatching marks define the forms boundaries. This is a process of drawing and not a style of drawing. Your drawing should be more carved than illuminated through your line qualities.

Calligraphic Lines
Show strong gestural qualities. These lines offer numerous variations of the thick-thin, short-long, flowing-angular, fast-slow, and light-dark line ideas. Calligraphic lines are more expressive than diagrammatic or structural lines.

In this drawing, we are as much concerned with diagrammatic searching as with calligraphic line. If this drawing had lines that were all the same, it would not be as interesting to look at. The strength of this drawing is its line quality.
Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980). Study of the Artists Mother. Black Chalk. 40.2 x 28 cm. Albertina Museum, Vienna 1988 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/Pro Litteris, Zurich.

 Here line is used for personal interpretation as well as description.

Alfonso Cano (1601-1667). Study for the Figure of a Franciscan Monk. Pen and Ink. 17.6 x 7.5 cm. Prado Museum, Madrid.

 Here calligraphic line is dominant. It is evident the artist enjoys the sheer act of drawing!
Claes Oldenburg (1929 - ). Preliminary Study for the Image of Buddha Preaching (1967) (Dropped Cup of Coffee). Pencil, crayon, and wash, on paper.. 30 1/8 x 22 1/8 in.

Summary
The calligraphic line is, to some extent, a tactile, sensual line. Your goal is to interpret the subject as a system of forms which offer interesting linear ideas ideas you feel extract the subjects essential character and allow for a satisfying use of line, much as you like to use line when writing.

Expressive Line
All lines exhibit some expressive character. We can define lines as being expressive when we sense in a drawing that the artists need to experience and share feelings pervades all other motives for lines use.

For example, Goya had a real need to experience and share feelings through and not merely about the content of the drawing. In his series, Disasters of War, the character of the lines reveal his feelings of oncoming doom. In every portion of his etching, even small segments of line cannot be viewed as cheerful, gentle or serene. Goyas lines do not stem from trying to create a pleasing visual image as much as they do to communicate a deeply felt emotional force that led him to create

Francisco de Goya (1746-1828). Sad Presentiments of What must Come to Pass from The Disasters of War. Etching, 4th State. 10.5 x 18.7 cm. Print Department, Boston Public Library.

 In this image, Girl in an Armchair, show a use of line that conveys a sensual, even erotic, interest in the female figure. These lines, by their nature, express the weight of the body. Again, here every line communicates the artists message.
Jules Pascin (1885-1930). Girl in Armchair. Charcoal, some yellow chalk. 55.9 x 43.1 cm. Photograph by Armen. Collection of the Newark Museum. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Bernard M. Douglas, 1957.

 The rugged and resolute chalk lines in Schieles drawing impart assertiveness and assurance.
Egon Schiele (1890-1918). Arthur Roessler Standing with Arms Akimbo. Black Chalk. Albertna Museum, Vienna.

 As we know, artists express for many reasons: historical, religious, political, and social issues have been catalysts for such drawings. However, it is impossible to draw without feeling something! Many other motives can and have stimulated artists to use line for expressive purposes beyond those triggered by visual issues. In this drawing we get a sense of the mood of the figures menacing attitude by the lines that create it.

Willem DeKooning (1904-1997). Untitled Woman (1961). Pastel and pencil on tracing paper. 23 11/16 x 18 11/16 in. Hirschorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution. Gift of Joseph H. Hirschorn, 1966.

 The lines that reveal Picassos understanding of a mothers love for her child are themselves gentle caresses.
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). Mother and Child and Four Studies of Her Right Hand (1904). Black crayon. 13 x 10 in. Courtesy of The Fogg Museum, Harvard University Art Museums. Bequest of Meta and Paul J. Sachs/ 1998 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 We all have our own style of drawing line its just how we are wired. Dont try to change your personal style! Keep in mind you are also influenced by intuitive and intellectual interests in creating art how we like to use and see line insist on a particular recipe for unique drawings. In responsive drawing, line functions at three levels: it describes, it acts, and it interacts with other lines, producing expression in a work of art! Drawing is therefore not just about description of what we see otherwise the art would be dull without your personal expression into whatever you are drawing!

Marsha Warren (student drawing). Reed pen and ink. 14 x 17 in. Art Institute of Boston.

 In order to create a more expressive drawing, you may want to clarify and emphasize your theme by exaggerating the bigness or littleness of some or all of your forms. You may want to alter your subjects contours, values, or the placement of its parts. Make such adjustments only when the expressive character of the lines cannot themselves intensify the feelings you mean to convey. Or, if the intended theme is conceived in a way that must include such changes, include them from the start of the drawing. However, be careful! Resorting to distortion before expressive lines have had a chance to indicate your intent, or carrying the distortions too far can create more problems than they solve.

It is wise for the beginning artist to focus on the nature of expressive line to convey a message rather than distortion. In Van Goghs, Grove of Cypress Trees, he declares his drawings expressive force by swirling lines. Had Van Gogh drawn these trees correctly, that is, had he held his feelings in check and only reported upon their proportions, texture, placements, and so on, he would have a descriptive drawing without creative energy!

Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890). Grove of Cypresses (1889). Pencil and ink with reed pen. 62.5 x 46.4 cm. Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Gift of Robert Allerton. Photograph 1996, The Art Institute of Chicago. All Rights Reserved.

 Compared to the next drawing, Bank of a Pond, the artist tells us about the growing, animated quality of a spring landscape. But Bresdins line is more lyrical and less driven. The breezy day is evoked by the graceful, rolling nature of line.

Rodolphe Bresdin (1825-1885). Bank of a Pond (Bord de Etang). Pen and black in on buff tracing paper. 16.3 x 16.9 cm. Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Gift of the Print and Drawing Club. Photograph 1996, The Art Institute of Chicago. All Rights Reserved

Honore Daumier (1808-1879). Two Barristers. Pen and ink. 20.5 x 29.5 cm. Courtesy of the Board of Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

In a different mood, Daumier, in his Two Barristers, also animates the image by expressive lines that do more than describe physical facts. Their nervous vibrations reveal the subjects movement and mood.

 Your drawing may lack the control and clarity of meaning you had hoped for! It will take patience, commitment, and the experience of many encounters with subjects drawn in line before these concepts and procedures, adapted to your interests, become necessary, natural, and satisfying. As William Hazlitt observed, We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it.

Delineated Contour Line

 Delineating should be understood as the establishing the physical boundaries of a from or plane with any of the four line concepts already discussed. That any kind of line can be used to convey the contours of forms is clearly seen in the drawings that we have looked at thus far. Delineations is a task that any type of line can perform. Delineating is not outlining, it is a volumeproducing process through the careful delineation of edges.

 Contour drawing remains a universally popular means of graphic expression because of its ability to economically state volumetric conditions of a form at its edges and even to suggest conditions of the forms terrain well within its edges. In DaVincis drawing, the contours are structural in character, but by there running at a right angle to many of the hatched lines that model the form, and by their continuity, we recognize their somewhat independent nature.

Leonardo DaVinci (1452 1519). Five Grotesque Heads. Pen and Ink. 26 x 21.5 cm. Royal Collection, Windsor Castle

 Whether delineation becomes an unselective tracing of edges a kind of fussy scrutiny- depends on the artists ability to recognize what is essential to the impression of volume and what is irrelevant or detrimental to it. Rubens drawing is a faithful drawing to its subject. His choices and changes make each delineating line reveal volume.

Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). Study of the Figure of Christ. Black chalk, later outlining in charcoal, heightened with white, reinforced at left edge of torso with brush and thin wash on buff paper. 400 x 298 mm (actual). The Fogg Museum, Harvard University Art Museums. Gift of Meta and Paul J. Sachs President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Exercise

Dennis Sopczynski (student drawing). Graphite Pencil. 18 x 24 in. University of Indiana at South Bend.

A delineating contour line is essentially translating edges to lines and describing volume through line. You will need 18 x 24 paper and a soft pencil and eraser. Draw only when you see actual plane shifts. Regard your line to be recording the edges of planes. Try to feel the line moving in and out of space as it follows an edge. By increasing and decreasing the pressure on your pencil, you can vary the value and weight of lines.

 Keep in mind that thinner, lighter, and/or less sharply incisive lines suggest the edges of rounded forms; heavier, darker, and/or more sharply focused lines indicate the edges of flat planes. Do not use lines to suggest values. If a line comes to an end, backtrack rather than picking up your pencil. The slower the line, the more you will see. You are essentially describing volumetric properties in few, more or less continuous lines.

Conclusion of Chapter Three

We must recognize that it is inquiry, empathy, invention, not merely the desire to imitate surfaces, that is at the heart of a knowing use of line. Your job as an artist is to describe what you see and to express what you feel or how you are relating to the subject. We are not robots making mere photocopies of our threedimensional world, we each have something to say and line is a tool to help us express it.