The Power of a Line
Lauren Pearce, Blind Contour (2021)
Realistic portraits with perfect shading and highlights can be quite compelling. But the humble line is powerful too. Portraits can say more with less when working with single line portraiture, whether you’re looking to create a bold statement or looking to pack a punch in a small area.
BLIND CONTOUR
This approach to portraiture calls for you to look only at your subject, and not at your paper. Do not lift your writing instrument, and capture the features of your subject where it feels like they would be. When you have completed the face, ears, hair, and any other elements you may want to capture, put your tools down and take a look at what you’ve expressed. You can leave these drawings as a single line, or you can add colorblocking to highlight the aspects of your subject’s features that you’d like to highlight. You can use colors rooted in realism, take a page from the expressionist book and go bold, or try a mix of the two. This wonderful exhibit by Lauren Pearce balances her subjects’ skin tones and pops of expressionist color with delightfully relateable results.
Lauren Pearce, Blind Contour Exhibition (2021)
MORE THAN FACES
If your portrait is more than just a face, what is it that you are trying to capture about the body? Is it a feeling, like comfort or freedom? Is it movement, the way a body flows? Try taking faces out of your work altogether and see where the body can take you. Once your lines are drawn, you can experiment with minimal shading and color to further your message.
MORE THAN PAPER AND CANVAS
When working with alternative media, lines can have a way of working with an object to express a subject in a new way. Working on found objects and alternative media can give us the opportunity to boil a subject down to its simplest moments of expression. What is important to include in order to convey a particular person? What can be left out?
Harlie Briggs is an artist who, in addition to her works on paper and canvas, creates wonderful works on found ceramics and clothing. Her pieces are all a conversation between the painted person and the object that holds these moments of line portraiture
Harlie Briggs, The Motherhood Vase
EXPLORING LINEWORK
I used these linework exercises to break up my house painting as I’m renovating The Glad Suite home base. They include some linework explorations, and some not-quite-linework yet still minimal lines work explorations:
I hope you add your thoughts and explorations in the comments, so we can share in the inspiration together!
