schiemz szene: Line and Tone

Drawing or mark making can be done using graphite, ink, chalk, charcoal, or crayon. Drawing is an excellent method for laying down the ground work for any pending creation. By drawing or sketching an intended work, corrections or alterations can easily be made.It is the foundation of painting, sculpture, and architecture.

Ink drawing, by Brendan Schieman - "Sherry Darling" 2009

Recognize how each student has different ideas about how to portray line and tone, allowing personal asthetic to shine!
What types of marks or techniques have they used?

Basic Discriptions of Line Drawing:

Pure contour line drawing is the simplest form of linear expression. The line describes visible edges of an object. If the subject is carefully chosen and oriented, a pure contour drawing can have strength, clarity and simplicity. Surface details such as color, shadow and highlight are ignored in pure contour drawing. Draw only clearly defined edges, resisting the temptation to color in shadows.

Some edges are clear, with a defined start and finish. But when the edge turns a corner or flattens out (such as along the bridge of a nose), the line should not be drawn, but implied. The artist needs to decide where the drawn line ends. The choice shouldn't be arbitrary, but should aim to help the viewer make sense of the form. Be consistent in your handling of similar forms and edges. The transition from edge to plane, or the line along an edge which isn't sharp, may be implied or suggested by making breaks in a line, a dotted line, or some variation between the two. A simple form, such as this apple, might offer little opportunity for use of implied line. Lineweight - pressing more or less heavily - may also be used - examples of this to follow.

Calligraphic or signatory line is a more expressive form of drawing, in which the artist allows the flow of line to carry some feeling. Signatory line, like the signature, will be unique to the artist, the product of their individual hand and mind. In this example, I've looked at the form of the apple and tried to capture it in a couple of quick, simple, and flowing calligraphic lines. Your personal style or signatory line will probably be very different, just as you signature is.

A complex object with many edges may give the appearance of detail, but a simple object will offer no information about its three-dimensional form. For example, a circle may be a flat disk, a ball or a hole. Only the context of the drawing gives clues about the form. Because of this, it can be easy to misinterpret shapes, or for them to look odd or badly drawn. In this example, the fingers look quite mis-shapen because lack of information gives the viewer insufficient clues as to the degree of foreshortening.

Adding detail gives the viewer more information about the form. Varied lineweight - lighter lines - or implied lines, where a line breaks off and resumes - makes it clear that these are not sharply defined contours, but surface details or softer edges. In this example, these types of line have been used to describe creases in the hand, and to suggest the planes formed by the bent fingers.

Blind Eye Drawing

http://www.christinarodriguez.com/blog/2010/4/6/the-forgotten-files-blind-contour-drawings.html

Drawing:
Beginning in the Italian Renaissance, debate arose regarding the role of drawing, as some saw it as an independent art form and others saw it as a preliminary stage in creating a painting or sculpture. By the 17th century, drawings had definite market value; connoisseurs specialized in collecting them, and forgers began to exploit the demand. In the 20th century, the drawing became fully autonomous as an art form, figuring significantly among the works of virtually every major artist, and the line itself was exploited both for its representational and its purely expressive qualities.

Adding detail gives the viewer more information about the form. Varied line weight - lighter lines - or implied lines, where a line breaks off and resumes - makes it clear that these are not sharply defined contours, but surface details or softer edges. In this example, these types of line have been used to describe creases in the hand, and to suggest the planes formed by the bent fingers.