Lines can:
Organize: example lines between objects to separate them.
Week 1
Week 2
Highlight or stress words: Set off a headline with a rule
HightLight
Connect bits of information:
Connect
Define a shape:
Outline or set off from other areas:
Create a Grid:
Create a Graph:
Create a pattern or rhythm:
Direct the viewers eye:
Suggest an emotion:
Connect
The deference
between a line
and a shape is a
subtle one that
sometimes
depend on scale.
Paul Klee’s Defines
a line as
“A dot out for a walk”
A.  Scale can turn
a shape into a
line
B.  Turn a line into
a shape
C.  Turn a letter
into a shape
3.1 scale
3.2 Herbert Sahliger
3.3 Robert Smithson
3.4 Eudice Feder
When enough lines are used it becomes the illusion of texture
Creating Lines
A line is formed along an edge where:
(A) two values meet, (b) two surfaces
meet. © two surfaces intersect.
3.5 line
Creating Lines
3.6 Kaethe Kollwitz
Creating lines without really drawing
them.
Creating Lines
3.7 Jacqueline Monnier
“Skyworks” 1976
Paper collage and Acrylic, 11 kite tails, various widths 26 -52’
Creating Lines
3.8 Louis Kahn
Central court, Salk Institute of biological Studies La Jolla,
California 1967 Concrete, teak wood and Marble
Creating Lines
3.9 Reuben Nakian
“Rock Drawing”
1957 Terra cotta, 10 x 14 x6”
Creating Lines
3.10 David Howells
Alphabet of freely written flourished
capitals, Lower case and numerals, in
black and green on gray paper
Sometimes the line making tools marks
are evident in the art work. David
Howells’ works with a calligraphy pen
to produce bold lines whose width can
be varied by changing the pressure
Creating Lines
3.11 Jan Groth
Creating Lines
3.12 Antoni Tapies
Creating Lines
3.13 Jackson Pollock
Expressive Qualities
of Lines
Expressive Qualities of Lines
Michael Mazur
“Michael Mazur has used jerky inked
lines that very erratically from thick to
thin to help suggest the fragmented
personality of a mental patient”
From page 64, “Design Principles and
Problems”
Expressive Qualities of Lines
George Sklar
George Sklar in “Raccoon” has used
a dry brush line to define his
raccoon with warm feelings toward
this creature, by creating the feeling
of soft fur
Expressive Qualities of Lines
Fernand Leger
A bold flat lines makes the viewer
respond to its directness.
Expressive Qualities of Lines
Page from the Koran
12th Century
Line Drawings
Noemi Zelanski
Line Drawings
Henri Matisse
Line Drawings
nonobjective rearrangement of
the lines in Maria Lani these
are the same marks as the
Matisse drawing
Line Drawings
Hatching,
Crosshatching,
and stippling
Line Drawings
Parmigianino’s Etching of “The Annunciation”
used close, heavy lines for darker tones and
thinner, softer, more widely spaced lines for
lighter tones, leaving the white of the paper
unmarked for the lightest of values.
From page 67, “Design Principles and Problems”
Positive and Negative Areas
Implied lines
Implied lines
Positive and Negative Areas
Josef Albers
In “Sancturary” the lines visually shift in and out to create motion
When only horizontal and vertical
lines are used, almost any design is
likely to be interpreted architecturally.
subdivision of
groundsheet
Diagonal often carve unfilled
areas into shapes that seem to
thrust outward from each
angular corner. An interaction
between the white triangles
and black lines start create
tension.
subdivision of groundsheet
Curved Lines often give the filled, and
unfilled areas a flowing rhythmic quality
subdivision of
groundsheet
When all four types of lines are
used together the result usually
suggests picture with a
reference to our world of
experience.
3.32 ebb and flow
3.33 ebb and flow
3.34 four squares
3.35 harmonious lines
3.36 arc origination from two lines
3.37 arc originating from four lines
3.38 calligraphy
3.39 Calligraphic statement
3.40 blind contour
3.41 blind contour
3.42 single descriptive line
3.43 vertical line
All images are from “Design Principles and Problems” second edition by Paul
Zelanski and Mary Pat Fisher ISPN0-15-501615-6