For this exercise, I was asked to experiment with how many lines I could use whilst still capturing the essence of a scene. I had to conduct some quick sketches of an object or scene using a minimal number of marks or shapes, either by allowing myself a set number of lines and reducing it down or by limiting my line usage in some other way. I was challenged to consider how few marks I needed to communicate what I wanted to in the image.
I feel like most of my sketchbook work, whilst not necessarily intentionally, is already utilising this technique. I much prefer the look of and feel to limited line/colour/shape drawings and sketches and have a lot of fun creating them. I struggled a little with this exercise, mostly because it didn’t really feel like I was ‘doing it properly’ as I was just drawing in a very similar way to how I normally do. I started by drawing what I could see outside of my windows, first with 20 lines and then with 11 lines. I tried to use 10 but hadn’t planned it very well. I then started drawing whatever was around me in the room, a chair, a picture of a bird, a teapot, mug, bottles, and a pair of scissors. I tried to challenge myself to not only use a limited number of lines but to push the boundary of how the objects were represented, abstracting the shapes and how they connected.
I really liked the page of objects I had developed but still felt like it wasn’t too detached from my normal. I was quite inspired to do some continuous line drawings at this point as it’s something I’ve never really gotten stuck into, but it fits the theme quite well. I did two, one of a set of drawers in my studio with objects on top and one of a section of my windowsill. I like these too, and I enjoy the qualities they have to them.
Exercises in abstraction and ‘less is more’ type techniques feel almost boring to me as it’s theories and techniques that already form a foundation in my creative practice. If I were asked to objectively draw a still life exactly as I saw it, taking time to create detailed drawings and accurate representations, that would be a challenge and maybe more interesting. I don’t feel like I got much from this exercise other than maybe inspiration for future projects, but the usage of limited line isn’t new and will always be a part of my art. I like a heavy dose of extreme maximalism and minimalism, perhaps combinations of the two – maximalist backgrounds and minimalist drawings.
Learning Log 