LINE AS ELEMENT OF ART

Line as element of Art for this post and in our previous  blog i have already discussed the different elements of art but to know them individually will be a plus point for a person who is interested in creating artwork, design. For understanding what line is, assume that there is a  point moving in a direction and leaving its path behind. So that path from starting position till the last position is called line. It is not that complex to understand, if you generally take real life example like when using pen or pencil to draw or write something and starting from one place to an end point. That path is known as line, an essential element of Art. Generally these basics doesn’t attract us too much as we think we already know all about it or there is not so much to know about it. Is it or not?

Different needs, different lines –

That is right according to need line is used in different artwork, if there is need to create a hut/house like in our childhood. If it is said that you have to use only one kind of line and draw a perfect house on paper, is it possible? A child will use all kind of lines vertical, horizontal or curved to create different kind of object in drawing. So even in our childhood when it was so necessary, so with perfect knowledge of it you can think of different possibilities that you can achieve in any artwork.

So here are some types of lines basically used in artwork.

  1. vertical
  2. horizontal
  3. diagonal
  4. zigzag
  5. curvedAs any other element a line itself have its own attributes, qualities that can be used when to draw a design or while creating any artwork. Attributes to have in mind when using lines to create a artwork are,

Length – a long line or a short line, your choice according to the need of artwork.

Width – a fatty line that is wide or a skinny line that have less width.
however in Photoshop if you draw a line this would give you properties like width and height. where width would be length according to our definition and height will be considered as the width in our definition.

Texture – line can also have texture like rough, sharp or smooth.

Direction– as line is a moving point,,it can move in any direction.

Degree of curve – level of curve of any line.

Line quality/width– It can be called line weight and can be used to create a feel of real object in any 2-D shape by adding extra line weight in some areas and in some place keeping line weight normal.

Hatching and Crosshatching- 

Hatching where lines are formed in one direction parallel most of time to form feel of light and shadow, few lines will be used for hatching to show the light part, and for the shadow part number of lines in hatching will be increased.

And cross hatching is just use of parallel lines crossing each others.

So guys that’s all for today’s post, go out draw something on paper be a kid again and see if you got these qualities mentioned in this post.