Picture in your head a beautiful mountain landscape. Imagine the soft rounded foothills and the peaceful mood that these lines create. As you move up into the mountains in your image, the sharp angular feel of the mountains jutting out of the ground contrast in emotion to the soft rounded lines of the foothills. Lines are everywhere around us. From the dotted lines on a road, to the structure of mortar in brickwork, our world is filled with lines.
ACTIVITY IDEA: Spend one hour of your day outside the home simply looking for line, both man-made and natural. Sketch examples of line in your sketchbook. How do lines affect your life?
With a single stroke of a pencil you call this element into play: Lines come in all different types. Fat or thin, long or short, curved or straight, sharp or fuzzy, composed of dots or dashes, square corners, or rounded corners, each line has a personality of it's own. With all these types of line to choose from it is important to know how line can be used in art to create mood, organize thought or even add texture.
Create a Mood Along with creating a mood, lines also provide movement to your design. Take a look at the following examples: In example A we have a simple horizontal line placed in the center of the frame. This line gives the feeling of comfort and calmness surrounded by all that white space. In example B we have the same line, but it is placed off center and at an angle. This line feels more active. In example C we see an example of how vertical lines communicate an organized activity vs. the tension and random feel angular lines can have. In example D we have a series of curved lines. These lines have a sense of direction, and also give the feeling of flowing or moving.
Organizer
Lines can be used both for communication as well as organization. Most road signs are simple lines used to communicate. Lines can also help organize and join related elements or divide unrelated ones.
Texture
Line is also a means of adding value and texture to our art. This is especially true in line drawing, illustration and sketching. Different shading techniques can be used to mimic real life texture. The process of crosshatching involves criss-crossing lines over top of each other to create texture as well as value. Below are some examples of cross hatching.
Characteristics of Line
Two types of line exist: actual and implied. Actual lines are lines are usually man-made. Think of lines on the road. Implied lines are lines that are used to describe the outline of an object. These lines are commonly refered to as contour lines. Picture in your head your favorite movie star. If you were to draw them on a piece of paper you might begin by outlining the shape of their head. This line techniqally does not exist, people do not have outlines around their faces. This is an example of an implied line.
A great exercise many artists use to improve their drawing skills is called blind contor drawing. To do this exercise, you take an object and without looking at your paper, you look at the implied outline of your object - or the contour line - and draw what you are seeing. In order to do this type of drawing you must work slowly, drawing every little outline that you see - and all without ever looking down at your paper! The picture above is an example of a contour drawing.