Drawing handout no. 2
College of Alameda
Instructor: Drew Burgess
fall 2015
Some elements of drawing
Line….One of the most fundamental ‘tools’ of drawing is line. Line has tremendous possibility as
a means to describe form and space. Try creating different types of line: light, dark, wide, thin,
curvy, straight, continuous and interrupted. When artists work with line they become aware of
space---drawing describes actual space and also intangible feelings of space.
Shape…Shape can be defined by line and independent of line. Line is sometimes the way we
describe or create shape. For example, an artist may want to portray someone and begin with
line to describe the shape of the nose. The nose itself is its own kind of shape. Often people
realize this as they draw, what is shape? How do we create shape? Shape may be tone and have
fuzzy indistinct edges. A foggy day has shape but it is different than the clarity of a bright day.
Shape may be something an artist invents.
Tone…I like to think of tone as the shadings or colorings of art. Tone to me is the way artists
utilize value and their own subtle distinctions to create the feeling that is a drawing. Value is
the degree of light and dark. Shading is what artists do when they are modeling form. Modeling
is the way an artist describes something like an apple and gives it a sense of form—kind of like
they are sculpting it with shading. Tone can be achieved with subtle degrees of light and dark—
value. Tone could be done with color, the way an artist varies the combinations of color to
create a sense of something, like a sky. I like the term tone but sometimes I have noticed that it
is referred to as value and there is a crossover of meaning. Tone implies to me the sensitivity of
the artist in the same way a musician can alter notes to suit his/her expression.
Mass…Mass is a most interesting component of two dimensional art. Mass is an area. An area
could be a broad undeveloped part of a drawing or an expanse of marks. If someone drew a
picture of a Rhinoceros and there was a large area of skin that would be a mass. Artists will
utilize combinations of fine detail and mass to create feeling. For example the artist might draw
fine hairs on the back of the rhinoceros and it offsets the mass---a tension may develop. These
variances are what artists employ to gain a sense of interest, sensitivity, expression or beauty.
Texture…When you are enjoying the surface of a piece of paper, maybe before you even begin
to draw, there is a feeling about the paper—the surface. Before you there is a space to engage
with. Texture is the quality of the surface. Artists will sometimes mimic a surface. I remember a
student who painstakingly described in pencil the shingles on a roof. The student created the
illusion of texture. Artists may also create actual texture. A drawing itself has texture and the
artist may be expressive with a build-up of material.