9. Line Basics - Hatching & Cross Hatching

Some notes for the lesson come from this video by Stephen Travers, and this video by David Finch on Youtube. Other notes come from my professor at the Art Institute of Boston, Anthony Apesos.

Some art media are great for blending. You can softly blend graphite, charcoal. You can blend slow-drying paint, like oils, on the canvas. In 3D you can blend clay together for different colors, marbling patterns, etc. Blending is great, but you can't blend everything. When you draw with a pen, marker, or stylus, etc., you can't blend, and so, in order to get a range of values from light to dark, you need to learn hatching.

Hatching is when you draw several lines in parallel. They don't describe the outline or contour of an object - they instead describe its surface.

Linear hatching is when all the little marks are straight and parallel:

Cross hatching is when you hatch in different directions over a space:

Contoured hatching is when your little marks are curved:

You can mix and match different hatching lines to describe the complexity of a scene:

Illustration from Bernie Wrightson's Frankenstein, 1983

The History of Hatching:

It's hard to say exactly when artists developed the technique of hatching. Certain homes around Pompeii had fresco paintings that have been preserved. Some, like this still life painted at the Villa of Publius Fannius Synistor, c. 50-40 BC, show definite hatching lines on the fruit:

There's also a "mummy portrait" from Hawara, Egypt that uses hatching, from the Tomb of Aline:

Aline's mummy portrait, 24 AD, artist unknown

It was found in 1892, at a time when many European nations were sending archaeologists to discover the art of Egyptian tombs - these scientists all wanted to make a name for themselves. Painting death portraits and draping them on mummies was a common practice in Egypt at the time, and this work shows the influence Greco-Roman art had at the time. You can see hatching lines of different colors - they look so modern, I almost wonder if this wasn't either a fake, or tampered with? I've never seen any other death portrait painted so well, even if the proportions are wonky (nose is too long).

Hatching became very popular with the rise of book making in the renaissance - it was used to print illustrations:

Sudarium of St Veronica; two angels holding the cloth depicting the face of Christ, by Albrecht Durer, 1513

But, hatching was used before this, in tempera paintings, because it's so fast drying. It dries too fast for artists to blend it:

Detail of an angel from The Maesta, by Duccio di Buoninsegna, 1308-1311 AD

It may be hard to see, but if you look really closely, you can see thin lines of paint in hatching lines. Look for this the next time you visit an art museum:

Hatching is still commonly used in printmaking, comic books, and all sorts of drawing.

Principles of Hatching:

1. Straight hatching lines make forms flat.

2. Contoured (curved) hatching lines indicate round forms. NOTE: It's only effective if your structure and lighting is well established.

3. Cross hatching is when you overlay lines with different angles. You can keep adding more and more lines at different angles to build up your dark values.

4. Find a way to work that is comfortable for your hand - hatching in some directions is easier than others. Be ready to turn the page to get the right angle for hatching.

5. The best direction to draw hatching lines is the one that follows the underlying forms. You don't want to hatch everything in the same direction. The worst you can do is use the same line direction to hatch two different planes that are next to each other.

6. Be careful not to draw hatching lines parallel to your contour lines, or you can lose clarity. Put them in at a slight angle away from the contours.

7. the spacing between your hatched lines needs to be consistent. If your spacing isn't consistent, it looks messy. You can begin to increase line spacing as you come toward the light.

8. Line weight is very important for hatching - you want thicker darker lines toward the shadow, that get thinner towards the light.

9.  When hatching an edge between planes - the softer that edge the longer your hatching will be. The harder the edge, the shorter your hatching will be - it can be extremely short. For small details with hard edges it's better not to add hatching - it's easy to overdo it.

10. You also want your hatching to indicate perspective.

11. Be careful not to add hatch lines out of a cast shadow, it ruins the illusion, adding shading where the form should be lightest. Hatching should only be used with form shadows.

12. Hatching can be used to create soft, or broken edges.

13. Hatching can be used to help make forms pop out.

14.You can use scratchy, broken hatching lines to indicate older, worn-out or rusty surfaces.

15. Another stylistic choice is to turn your hatching lines so they point toward the light source. Bernie Wrightson and Frank Frazetta did this.

16. Hatching doesn't have to be something you add last. You can make an entire work, start to finish, with just hatching.

LEVEL 1 ASSIGNMENT - Value Hatching from Dark to Light

THE SET UP: paper & pen works best - perhaps a brush pen?

Draw a box like the one shown here, and try your best to hatch even gradations from light to dark.

LEVEL 2 ASSIGNMENT - Pen & Ink Still Life with Hatching

THE SET UP: paper & pen works best - perhaps a brush pen?

LEVEL 2 ASSIGNMENT - Master Studies

THE SET UP: paper, pencil & pen - perhaps a brush pen?

Try to copy these great portrait sketches by Dave Malan. Work in pencil first, sketching loosely to get the basic shapes and proportions. Then use a pen to try to capture the same hatching lines he uses.

LEVEL 2 ASSIGNMENT - 

THE SET UP:

LEVEL 3 ASSIGNMENT - 

THE SET UP: