Line Art in the Form of Crosshatching

Crosshatching is a form of line art taken to a different level. It does not need to be of any particular color. Most of the time it is done with black ink on white paper. Crosshatching is a series of lines that are parallel or closely parallel to each other that determines the darkness or lightness of shading on an object.

When crosshatching began is hard to say. It became prevalent before the Dark Ages when colored ink started to become scarce, and used mainly in different manners to discern colors on black and white prints. This was around the time achievements (coat-of-arms) were depicted as engravings where color was spared.

Some might disagree with the actual time period that crosshatching began. It truly is difficult to find the exact date or century for that matter. Nevertheless, it has become its own form of line art and to this day is still used in many artistic professions.

Cartoonists and comic book artists, which are different, both use crosshatching to distinguish variations in tones and shades. Pick up any beginner book on learning to draw cartoons or comic book characters, and you will see that they teach this technique.

Many artists would rather freehand these parallel lines into place than to use a straight edge. They would argue with you that it adds character to their artwork. And so it does. At least, you would think it does. There are commercial artists and draftsmen who would say otherwise.

These latter two divisions of artists use all sorts of gadgetry to make their forms of art more pristine. You will find them using t-squares, triangle and other templates to keep their lines perfectly straight. Some will go to the length of adding crosshatching line work to their computer images.

Pick up any paper and take a look at the political cartoons in them. Pay close attention to the line work in them. The evidence is there in the art. Now imagine that picture three to four times the size it is. That would be the original size of the actual artwork. There was much time involved in drawing that one frame.

Crosshatching was even used by Leonardo da Vinci in his notebooks. This would make him seem more eccentric as he did not need to use them considering his ability in art. He could have just shaded in the areas instead.

No matter how much you think line art is not all that difficult, you should try to draw something using nothing but crosshatching. It is not as easy as you may think it is.