Tuesday Tutorial -- TRIPLE Duty!

This Tuesday Tutorial takes a look at the Monday Morning Marty drawing from yesterday.

One of the most important rules of any illustration is economy. In other words, Keep It Simple etc. Limit your colors, your strokes, your subject to the least amount necessary to get the job done.

Even with a drawing with as many lines as this one -- or rather, ESPECIALLY with a drawing with as many lines as this one -- it's important to keep the number down. We don't want the image muddied up with too many lines. That's why the hatching lines on Marty here are serving double duty.

Look closer at the image -- a close-up is provided below. See how the hatching lines do two things at once -- they provide an optical graying effect, giving the viewer a sense of the light and shadow falling on the dog. In this case, he's backlit with the light source coming from the upper right of the frame, so that edge of him is brighter, with the rest cast in shadow. The hatching provides that contrast.

But it also serves to indicate the contours and "roundness" of Marty, like a contour map that shows hills and valleys. While the density of the lines gives us the gray value, the direction of the lines guide us along the three-dimensional shape of the head and neck, creating a sculpting illusion.

It could be said in this particular example that the lines are providing yet a third service -- showing us the direction of Marty's fur, and how it lays on his skin. There were several ways I could have turned the lines to suggest the contours of Marty's body -- wherever possible, I chose those that also followed his fur.

Of course, I'm only referring to the hatch lines in the white, or color-neutral parts of Marty's body. Where the spots or markings go, the lines also illustrate the value differences there, too. So maybe that's a FOURTH duty? Those lines sure are busy in this drawing!

Stumble It!