THE EXPRESSIVE LINE

The Life Model - white conte and charcoal on
pre-tinted paper

Our drawings are often, certainly for the beginner anyway, tentative. Perhaps this is partly fear of drawing the lines too firmly, since that makes them harder to erase! Yet, we doodle with lines quite confidently…so therefore, we must have some reluctance to draw objects or scenes with that same confidence. Not surprising of course…we are trying so hard to create a drawing that looks like our subject. After all, someone might look at it.......


I have also noticed that students reasonably confident with a pencil, sometimes turn into nervous wrecks when asked to draw with pen and ink! The safety net of the eraser …gone! The resulting drawings are often stiff, showing the anxiety of the artist. So clearly…our thoughts and feelings, as well as our skills, are conveyed to the world through our drawings.


It is interesting to realise that unlike our handwriting, which we take for granted and which rarely changes in style, all drawn lines have expressive qualities, and the more we explore the differing characteristics of the lines we create, the more we expand our artistic vocabulary and move beyond our natural inclination to draw everything in the same way .

Of course, it is appropriate to spend time making drawings which are purely observational – exploring our subject carefully, constructing the form as accurately as possible, getting the fundamentals of proportion, scale, perspective, direction etc right. This can be taught, and learned, it becomes a valuable skill. Here is a drawing of a skull I did when I was a student. It shows evidence of strong observation,it was clearly the result of slow, careful execution, it is competent - but somewhat bland and lifeless ....sorry, awful pun there !   :)

But just look at this line drawing by Toulouse Lautrec. Pen and ink!! Yet look at the vigour of the work, the feeling of life and movement! No proper face – does it matter? Is the horse's head a wee bit small?  Maybe, but does it matter?  Not a bit. We feel the strength of the trooper, his comfortable, confident position on his horse, the powerful body of the horse, all done with a few lively, gestural lines.




Take a look at this selection of lines below. And think of the adjectives we could apply to them. Can you “see” any of these words?


nervous : angry : happy : free : quiet : excited : calm : dancing : vigorous ; graceful : confident : hesitant : joyful

The basics of good proportions, form and structure, still need to be present in your drawings, but I urge you, at the same time,to consider, albeit gradually to begin with, the use of line variety for expressive and emotional reasons, to emphasise some of the abstract qualities of your subject. Lines can flow slowly or rapidly to express varying types of movement,  they can be heavy or positive for emphasis and drama, they can express tone and weight, they can be soft and sensitive and even by their absence, can suggest light - or lack of it, as in the life model drawing at the top of this blog.   you may find, as you become sensitive to this aspect of drawing,  that you begin to produce drawings which are so much more interesting and telling, than those created purely to be accurate.

ON THE EDGE

A reader asked me to touch on the aspect of EDGES, with sketching in mind rather than painting –which is a whole different subject I will tackle at a later date . 

We all use lines to define shapes…we put OUTlines around everything, and as children, would then “colour in” those outlines.

YET…..

Very often, these edges simply do not exist in the real world.  People, for instance, are not flat, like stage scenery. Neither is a ball, a pear, a flower.  What DOES have edges then?  A box has an edge – well, several of course.  So does a rectangular or square building.  All sounds rather obvious, I know – but we still feel the urge to put lines around everything, even if there is no actual edge.

However,  making a hard line where the eye stops at a so-called edge, might well visually flatten the form and destroy the illusion of three-dimensional form.  Since we are trying to create this illusion, on a flat, two-dimensional surface…paper…we need to find ways to tackle the “edge” so that we are hinting at a continuance of the shape, beyond that contour edge.  Visual examples are always best, so take a look at the vase sketches below.  You can clearly see how unnecessary the hard edge lines for the sides of the vase are in the bottom image, if anything, they seem to bring the sides of the vase forward!  Very simple examples, but very effective to show how much we need to develop sensitivity to edges in our sketches, particularly if we intend to develop the 3-D form with the use of tonal shading.

Without the use of shading, a greater sensitivity to the weight of the lines we use, will also help enormously to reinforce the illusion of three dimensions.  We need to become more responsive to our subject, and in so doing, our drawings will become more expressive, and far less mechanical.  

Take a look at this Rembrandt drawing.  His lines appear to flow spontaneously, but every one is telling.  We can sense the form and changes of plane,  and we even understand the direction of the light.  We can feel the weight of her head, and the weight of her sleeping body pressing into the bedding. It is a beautifully expressive brush drawing, not even remotely mechanical, and it “breathes” on the paper because the figure is not enclosed in “wire” with a hard edge all around it.  This was a quickly-executed drawing..which shows that it is not the time spent that makes a worthwhile drawing, it is understanding and sensitivity.

Time spent studying master drawings, and thinking more carefully about your own drawings and the edges you use, will help you enormously when you come to tackle the subject of “lost and found” edges in painting…..watch this space, folks….