The Line Convention

{Leonardo}

{Emiliano Ponzi}

{Hokusai}

{Jillian Tamaki}

{David Hockney}

The first two-dimensional drawings that exist by humans include contour lines. This language of line is so familiar to us that we almost forget that they are entirely a human convention-- the description of edges in shorthand. Illustration often relies on it heavily-- often reducing an entire idea to black lines, or using line work as the primary structure. So this is where we start, dear students of a fresh quarter, thinking about and wrangling with line.