These next three postings include recent drawings produced during a period when I have been debating within myself whether line can address tone. I guess I have always been aware of this question, but recently I have felt that the question needs to be resolved. Most would say that line and tone are different aspects of a drawing. But when I study the drawings of Albrecht Durer I see that all his marks are lines, and areas of tone are made up with lines.
I have just been gifted some books on the work of Durer by a dear friend of mine. In one of them 'Drawings of Albrecht Durer' selected and introduced by Heinrich Wolfflin, the author talks of "the beauty of the whole is not in the figure alone, but in the network of lines in which the figure is, to an extent, enmeshed". He recalls that Durer's drawings are (often) spoken of as 'grand decorative linear systems'.
When using my fine-liner pens there is no attempt to introduce tone. Sometimes with graphite pencils then tonal work enters into the drawing with some diagonal shading. Sometimes I use charcoal, caressed with the finger, or tinted charcoal with a tissue or my finger, in order to help myself differentiate the various parts of the pose I have brought together and superimposed. Here I am using the tonal treatment as a way of informing what the drawing is of.
So this set of drawings are not in any way the outcome of an investigation or study of the issue of line versus tone. What I want them to be is examples of my drawing techniques which can be analysed to help enter a discussion about line and tone.
I have just been gifted some books on the work of Durer by a dear friend of mine. In one of them 'Drawings of Albrecht Durer' selected and introduced by Heinrich Wolfflin, the author talks of "the beauty of the whole is not in the figure alone, but in the network of lines in which the figure is, to an extent, enmeshed". He recalls that Durer's drawings are (often) spoken of as 'grand decorative linear systems'.
When using my fine-liner pens there is no attempt to introduce tone. Sometimes with graphite pencils then tonal work enters into the drawing with some diagonal shading. Sometimes I use charcoal, caressed with the finger, or tinted charcoal with a tissue or my finger, in order to help myself differentiate the various parts of the pose I have brought together and superimposed. Here I am using the tonal treatment as a way of informing what the drawing is of.
So this set of drawings are not in any way the outcome of an investigation or study of the issue of line versus tone. What I want them to be is examples of my drawing techniques which can be analysed to help enter a discussion about line and tone.
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