Figure Drawing: Line and Contour

By Helen South, About.com Guide

Tone can be used selectively in contour drawing for creative effect, such as to draw attention to a specific area of the figure; the contrast of highly realist or expressive tonal work in combination with pure contour drawing can create great visual tension.

In this drawing I attempted to keep the line as simple and elegant as possible, just varying the lineweight a little. Only the shadows under the hair are rendered, and the face lightly modeled. The modeling of the face has gone awry - when I drew this, I hadn't learned any strategies for tackling the head - but it is otherwise successful, I think - though I'd use the lineweight a little differently now, too.

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• Figure Drawing: Line and Contour
• Gestural Structure
• Short-pose contour drawing
• Continuous line
• Exploratory Line
• Contour drawing with selective tone
• Expressive line

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