9. Line Basics - Hatching & Cross Hatching

Some notes for the lesson come from this video by Stephen Travers, 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:

The History of Hatching:

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, and all sorts of drawing.

Principles of Hatching:

1. Linear Hatching makes forms flat.

2. Contoured (curved) hatching lines indicate round forms.

3. 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.

4. The best direction to draw hatching lines is the one that shows the underlying forms.

5. You also want your hatching to indicate perspective

6. Be careful not to draw hatching lines parallel to your contour lines, or you can lose clarity.

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

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

9. Hatching doesn't have to be something you add after drawing all the shapes with other lines. You can make an entire work with just hatches.

LEVEL 1 ASSIGNMENT - Value Hatching from Dark to Light

THE SET UP:

LEVEL 1 ASSIGNMENT - Pen & Ink Still Life with Hatching

THE SET UP:

LEVEL 2 ASSIGNMENT - 

THE SET UP:

LEVEL 2 ASSIGNMENT - 

THE SET UP:

LEVEL 3 ASSIGNMENT - 

THE SET UP: