Design Element: Line
Design Principle: Emphasis and Movement
A Line is a pathway, the elemental mark, and a moving point. Lines and edges define our visual sense because we identify objects by innately scanning their contours. We are also very effective at using an object’s past and current movement to predict its future location. (We do this math almost without thinking when we are driving in traffic. We can predict space, time and distance as we navigate our car with other people’s perceptions of space, time and distance. It’s a wonder we don’t have more accidents.) While it’s a wonder we don’t have more accidents, it affirms how viewers are aware and depend on accurate marks and lines to understand them.
Line in art represents not only the edge of a form, but the movement and emotion the form represents. The drawn line is the trail left by our arm and hand pulling the point of a pencil or brush across the canvas to capture this emotion, movement, form and energy. To make art that truly connects to your subjects and viewers, implement Line as one of your first composition tools.
Putting it into practice:
When you’re out in the field, looking for that perfect scene to capture, be open to how lines work. The purpose of this design element is to bring the viewer into and around the painting. Well-designed paintings use both subtle and strong use of lines to give their painting “bones,” if you will.
Questions: Can you have a plein air painting without line? No. All representational painting will, to some degree, have line as a design element. Even abstract paintings use line.
When in the process of painting do you consider line? At the beginning stage of design, as you assess the scene for a painting, is the best time to look for and use line. Your design lines will make themselves more or less apparent during the painting process. When you’re assessing the near finished work, make sure your lines are behaving the way you want them to. Ask, “are they doing their job?”
At the start, as you determine a scene to paint, do you draw to reinforce line with other design decisions? Or later, as you assess a painting, do you create lines to manipulate the viewer to move differently through the painting? Yes, and yes. First, as you start, it helps to see and use lines to create movement in and through your work. This movement creates the emotion you are trying to capture. You’ll also use different elements, such as shapes, values and edges, etc., in concert with lines to finish your design. As you complete your painting, keep stepping back, walk away from it. Look at it upside down, or backwards on your phone. When you return, pay attention to how your eyes move through your work. Where do they land? Where do they stop? Where do they want to go next? Do you need a mark to cross a line to slow your eyes? Do you need to grey a color down a notch or soften an edge to transition from shape to shape? Recall some of the Mindfulness lessons here. Remember, never stop designing, especially while painting, you’re continually using these design skills through the development of the entire painting.
In addition to the emotional connections lines produce, the line’s function can be used to convey several other attributes or qualities within your art. This is from Andrew Loomis’s book “Creative Illustration.”
“Line can convey unlimited beauty.”
“All lines should have a function and purpose. I want you to think of it in that light. Everything from this day forward that you do artistically will bear a relationship to line, either good or bad.” – Andrew Loomis
Seven primary functions of line
To convey its own intrinsic beauty
To divide or limit an area or space
To delineate a thought or symbol
To define form by edge or contour
To catch and direct the eye over a given course
To produce a grey or tonal gradation
To create design or arrangement
One page from Andrew Loomis’s book Creative Illustration clearly shows the power lines have helping the eye navigate through, around and into your compositions. (Although this book is written for and from a “professional Illustrator’s” perspective, it is jammed packed with great insights any artist can use. Highly recommend adding this one to your library.)
On each of our Paint Outs, be aware of your lines; they are there somewhere. Take notice of them, understand their power and energy. Use them well. Emphasis some, quiet others down, and eliminate lines that are not needed. Use lines wisely in your art and they will do wonders to captivate and convey the emotions you want your art to have.
Helpful hints:
You’ll have many lines within your painting.
Some very subtle, some more dominant. Understanding this hierarchy of lines is an opportunity to see and use Line to create movement. Look for your main line of attention.
This main line helps navigate the viewer through your painting. And like branches on a tree, lines will branch off and intersect, creating secondary movements.
So when designing your composition, consider how you want the viewer’s eye to travel through, into, and around your painting. Use your quick sketches to capture these free and gestural lines in your design.
If you don’t see this movement or rhythm at first, try to create some using lines. Use your imagination and emphasize one line over another.
Now, a line doesn’t have to be a literal line. You can create linear movement with repetition of color, texture, shapes, and value.
When painting water, look for natural occurring lines from the ripples in the water. Use these lines to help keep your viewer into the painting or help them return to a certain area where they can pick up another line.
Use lines to break up or interrupt shapes.
This interruption slows down the viewer’s eyes and allows for more detail and intrigue in certain areas. These lines, in concert with the edges of the canvas, can help gently coax the eye back into the painting.
For Example:
Richard Schmid “Aspen Forest” Oil on canvas 20” x 34” Colorado Rocky Mountains, 1990.
Notice: the main horizontal, yet slightly downward line of the forest floor is softly balanced with the majestic vertical lines of the trees. This brings both a calm and majestic feeling to this piece, equal to the feeling of actually being in this place. Secondary diagonal lines are used with the triangles of light green in the upper right and a wedge of darks in the middle right. Minor lines of literal branches on the ground and in the brush of the lower woodlands are used to direct the eye back to the center of interest, which is the main aspen tree. Notice the rhythms of color shapes used, especially in the warm colors on the ground, to also bring the eye gently back to the hero of this story.
ASPEN FOREST Oil 20” X 34” ©Richard Schmid 1990
Maria Delton’s wonderful watercolor “Montrose Harbor at Dusk 5/21/21” incorporates many lines, some more prominent than others. The main horizontal line of the distant shore is set up high on the paper, making this painting all about the boats and reflections in the water. The three main boats in the middle ground are quickly and confidently captured with big shapes and just enough detail to keep us intrigued. The horizontal lines indicating the water and the masts reflections offer us a playful rhythm to these shapes. Her ever so slightly diagonal line of the water, up and to the right, brings a feeling of slow, steady and hopeful growth and movement. The spots of warm color on the boats gives us an area we can focus on and rest. She also saved her darkest dark and lightest lights for her center of interest within these boats. The treatment of the distant masts give us just enough information to help connect the water/land shapes with the sky shapes. It’s a beautiful piece by Maria, painted very well and in true spirit of plein air.
Maria L. Delton, Watercolor “Montrose Harbor at Dusk” 5/21/21