Details of the Elements

Before we pick up our tools and start drawing we have to revisit our elements of design.Let's get a bit more in depth with the elements of drawing.Remember that a line is the most basic element of a drawing. In it's most basic definition, a line is  what separates one area of the drawing plane from the other. A single line will partition your piece of paper into "that area" and "this area".The inanimate objects we see in real life are three-dimensional. However, we use lines to separate a composition - and our drawings can be flat or perceive to have depth.The more lines that are added, the more complex and numerous the separations become. You begin to build using light from dark, foreground from background, positive space from negative space.A line can be one width and uniformed, or it vary in thickness to make it more interesting. When you look at your television set, your phone or monitor, there are no lines. Instead what you see are separations of different surface planes. So, we use lines to depict the different surface areas - but lines do not exist in the real world, only in our drawings.