What I Have Learned About Line Art

Something many artists do is line art, or outline their sketches so they can color them in. Though this may not be a big focus for some, me being one of them for awhile. But there are artists who do focus on their line work, and I have joined them as I have found it to become an important part of my process.

But what is line art? If you haven’t heard the term, like I mentioned, it is the outlines of your art piece. Most people lay down these outlines in pen or ink, to color in with their more colorful art mediums. But some artists focus more on this line work with making it a focus, often leaving the piece in black or white, or grayscale if they choose to add more elements with their ink or pen. Now that we are all on the same page let’s get into what I have learned about line art so far in my art journey!

I started out with my line art being just outlines. I would just take any black pen that would do and trace over my lightened pencil sketch and then move on. My main concern was getting from sketch to color. I often just used any black pen that was either given to me or I would find. I wasn’t concerned about much else about the pen.

The first thing I learned when it comes to line art is that picking a good pen is important. Especially if you want it to not smudge when you do apply your colorful medium like markers or pencils. When I first started I dealt with a lot of smudged outlines since some pens take longer to dry than others and some pens are better for certain types of materials than others. When I begun using markers in my artwork I had to learn that some pens work better with water based markers and others work better with alcohol based markers. But now I work with pens that don’t take to long to dry so that I’m not messing up the lines I’ve already put down. I also try to find pens that won’t have issues with certain mediums that I use to color.

Something else I have learned about line art is that you should add different line weights, or line thicknesses. Making some lines thicker than others can add to visual interest overall in a piece whether you choose to color the piece or not. I started focusing more on this in the last year and really practiced line weight during this year’s InkTober challenge this past month. I’ll give you a look below, but you can check out all my line drawings on my Instagram page and the InkTober post coming to the blog soon!

I started focusing more on this in the last year and really practiced line weight during this year’s InkTober challenge this past month. I’ll give you a look below, but you can check out all my line drawings on my Instagram page and the InkTober post coming to the blog soon!

As an artist, I am always learning and always growing my skills. That is my favorite part about art. You are never done improving. There is always another piece to create and in it you learn what works and what didn’t. I hope to continue to develop my skills and learn new things!