describing form with line
Describing Form with Line
With practice, you can make linear drawings that fool the eye into believing that the image is three-dimensional. Besides being aesthetically interesting, this method of drawing will teach you a lot about form. In directing your line around countours and up and over bumps, you understand form at the neuromuscular level. This technique employs a couple of visual tricks: 1. Draw the lines so that they appear to curve around the object. 2. Make the lines wider apart in some areas and closer together in others.
closer wider
Vary the Spacing and Follow the Form Watch the spacing variations—lines grow closer together as they travel over a bump or around a form. Also, draw lines so they appear to curve around the contours of an object.
Close together
Wide apart
Create Three Dimensions The illusion of three-dimensional forms can be produced by undulating parallels which are sometimes apart, other times close together.
Work in Patches Change the direction of your strokes for each separate patch.
Avoid Using Outlines Although it may not look it, these intertwined forms were done entirely without outlines. The illusion is produced by the way the lines change direction or gather together at the edges.
Patterned Grasshopper I slipped the macro drawing from page 46 under a fresh sheet of paper and put them on a light table to make this piece. The diagram of the eye area shows how I changed the direction of the strokes for each little patch.
Cracked Nut Here’s another example of working in patches, but in contrast to the relatively straight lines of the grasshopper, these lines are more undulating and rhythmic.
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