What is a line?

As the contour drawings use line alone to create the image it is  worth stopping to consider what a line is. Is the old saying  that there is 'no such thing as a line in nature ' true? Have you ever seen one in a photograph?

The hexagon becomes a cube when we place three interior lines


These lines are 'contours ' but they also represent the edges where one side of the cube meets another side – in drawing language the line represents a ‘change of plane’. 

A line can show where

- a plane meets a plane

- tone meets tone

- suggest depth and light and shade by its density

- trace a path across a surface ( as in the contour drawings)

- trace a movement (e.g. Picasso drawing with light)

It might help to think of a line as the ‘ symbol of an edge ‘.

It can also reveal a form by continually moving over its surface (as in the contour drawings )