BREATHING LINE Assignment D.C.1.1 Directions: Draw a line with a pencil. Now that it's on paper, make it breathe by building it up and breaking it down again. Use an eraser to lighten or eliminate parts of the line. Use different sizes and softnesses of pencils to make different marks. (A good variety of pencils and a kneadable eraser are useful for this excercise. Here's a good pencil set.) Just like you breathe--just like your tissue cells die and are replaced--recreate your line. Notice how the second line has soft edges, somewhat harder edges, light parts and dark accents. It's much more organic than the first line. When you are finished with your line, email me a scan or photograph. You will use breathing lines to finish the Head Dimensions assignment. Notice in the third image how the line gets thicker and darker, and fills in the joints where one line meets another line. Try this in your drawings. COMPLETED ASSIGNMENTS: Katy Cowley - 12.20.08 Great job, Katy. I love the variety of values. If I had one wish, it would be to see more variation in the line as a whole: rather than two fairly straight edges with a bend--maybe some sort of squiggly area. Belinda Bringhurst - 10.14.08 Good job, Belinda! I like how your line splits up in a couple of places, and I like the variety of value contrast! There is one thing that I would change about this line. See in the darkest places where the line curves? It's like you're on a roller coaster and then suddenly whisked in a different direction. I wish there was a little bit of softness there, so that the darkest areas are coated with a soft, breathing exterior. Does that make sense? Perhaps a bit of angularity would give the line the added variety it needs. A wise artist once said that the best art combines the greatest amount of variety and resolves it in perfect unity. Amy Tolk Richards - 10.15.08 Amy, I like the huge variety of marks on your line. Some scratch diagonally across, some are sharp angles and some are subtle curves. Some are super straight and some are fluid squigglies. Very nice! Jennifer Prince - 10.28.08 It's hard to see in this small reproduction that Jennifer's line actually has some beautifully soft nuance to it. Well done, Jennifer! For purposes of this excercise, I wish the line had more variety--some cutting dark areas. Kim Kincaid - 10.28.08 Kim, this is a beautiful line. I love the variety in values--the boldness of the darks and the soft whispy lights. For design purposes you could not have a better line. For fine art purposes, I wish you would experiment with a line that has hard corners, multiple marks breaking off the line, and textures. I can tell from this line you are a neat artist, but I also want to see your messy side. You can see in the small inset to the lower right part of Kim's head study. This is what I'm talking about. I absolutely love the way the line gets dark where meets another. I love how you can see the erased lines--you can see Kim's process of trying to find the right positioning. These things all give the line life and make it breath.