Tutored Life Drawing Blog Week 05: Hatching (Patreon)

To co-incide with Inktober we're combining our blogs on tonal markmaking with inky  media - this week we'll be looking at hatching in fine liner pens. Fine liners provide a cheap, accessible introduction to ink, creating lines of consistent thickness, and are effective for detailed work. They come in a range of different colours, from traditional drawing colours like black and sepia to bright and vibrant hues. 

Hatching is a way of building up tone with repeated sets of parallel lines, changing the density of marks to adjust how dark or light an area is. Ink is not the only medium that hatching applies to – this way of rendering tone can be used with pencil and charcoal, or also with various printmaking techniques, digital art, silverpoint and other media.

Main image: 'Ellie'

'Bella' This sketch was created with a brown fine liner. You could also combine colours.

Lines

The lines for an ink drawing may be created ahead of the tone, though these are not always exclusive stages. Lines are mostly used to describe contours – see lesson 2 on Contour for a refresher – and are different to hatching as they are not creating a repetitive pattern. Interesting lines can improve a drawing's clarity and aesthetic. This can be done by varying line weight and the quality of the marks. Fine liners create a line of consistent thickness, but the pens themselves come in a variety of thicknesses, usually ranging from 0.05mm, to 1mm.

A range of fine liner nibs with their size in mm.

Lines can be key factor in drawing style. Some people will opt for lines of consistent thickness, whereas others prefer more variety. This depends on taste, although an awareness of how to adjust lines is useful when making visual decisions.

Examples of straight and curved lines of consistent thickness, various transitions between thick and thin, broken lines and wobbly lines.

Above are several different types of line created in fine liner - practice them yourself.

• The 1st line has consistent thickness, as it comes out of the pen.
• The next 3 have variable thicknesses. When drawing in fine liner, it is hard to vary line weight with pressure (as one might with a brush) so to do this, it is necessary to 'go over' the same line to make it thicker.
• The 4th is a broken line. Breaks in the line do not affect the flow of the line. Ideally, these lines are created with one stroke, and the break is a brief 'skip' of the pen lifting off the paper.
• The final line shown here is variable or 'wobbly'. This is just one example, as it is possible to make lines 'wobble' in many different ways, depending on the textural outcome desired.

This image uses varied line weights to emphasise the curvature of the contours, and the proximity of forms – nearer areas have thicker lines whilst more distant ones are thinner.

How to Create Hatching

Hatching involves making a series of repeating marks to form areas of different tone. This is distinguished from cross hatching, which involves layering these patterns – this will be covered in the next lesson. It can become quite time consuming to hatch a large, detailed image, so consider the scale you want to work at. Ideally, the size of the image should be large enough to allow for an illusion of tone, whilst still being manageable.

When making these marks, avoid 'scribbling'. To make neat hatching requires a bit of practise and patience. In general, helps to be swift, but controlled. When making larger marks, try to draw from the elbow or shoulder instead of the wrist to avoid curving the lines – this means to keep the wrist and fingers still, whilst swinging the hand with the elbow.

Different tones created with different density of hatching.

The most straightforward form of hatching is to make a series of parallel straight lines. Areas of tone can be conveyed by how densely the lines are drawn together. If you have a dark area to draw, it may help to switch to a thicker pen, and vice-versa for using thinner pens for lighter areas.

Gradients created by varying the mark density.

Changing the density of marks in a patch of hatching creates the impression of a gradient. An area of densely packed marks can gradually transition to sparsely distributed marks.

There comes a point where the more sparse marks can seem disconnected and awkward. There are a couple of ways to deal with this. The first is to step down to a thinner pen nib, which means the marks needn't be as few apart. Another option is to incorporate broken lines into the hatching. These appear to be lighter, as less ink is going down.

Alternative patterns that create tone.

Though it is not hatching, pointillism uses dots to form tone. This is useful for limited subtle areas within drawings, but can also be used to create an entire image, though it is quite time consuming to do. It is also possible to make patches of tone with disorganised swatches of hatching that point in different directions – a useful way of making a flat area of tone without the stiffness of longer lines.

Descriptive Hatching

It is possible to indicate different properties with hatching. Here, tonal values, light direction, cross contours, and action direction are mentioned, but this is not an exhaustive list.

Hatching itself is a form of tone. As marks build up, they appear darker. Tone doesn't always directly represent the tonal values observed – see lesson 4 on tone regarding modelled tone and atmospheric tone. If you're hatching an area, the direction of your marks can indicate other information about the subject.  Aimless marks can detract from the overall drawing, and even neat hatching can look flat. When creating a drawing with hatching, it is fine to either be consistent with what is being indicated, or dip into what is most useful and combine different properties.

This drawing shows tonal values, combined with a few different types of hatching.

One of the most straightforward approaches to using hatching marks is to change the density to describe the tonal values observed. This can be effectively combined with directional marks, or kept flat, so the marks point in a consistent direction.

Hatching lines follow the direction of the light coming from the upper right of this drawing. In this example, there are few contour lines – the impression of the figure is given in tonal shapes.

Hatching for light direction involves making lines that mostly follow the same direction the light source is coming from. There might be a little bit of variation to show surfaces or details, but this technique tends to rely on tonal values. As all the hatching points in roughly the same direction, there is a lot of unity to this approach. Don't worry about the lines being perfectly aligned, as a bit of wobble can add a more organic feel.

The direction of these hatching lines follows the cross contours of the face, whilst their density indicates tonal values.

Cross contours occur between contour lines to help describe surface and volume. Because they follow the surface, these lines can curve and change direction. Often there is no 'correct' way to decide on the direction to follow a surface, as there are often multiple effective ways of doing so. However, the tactile sense of curvature should always be considered. This can be tricky at first. One tip is to imagine that the drawing is being sculpted by the pen, and the marks are building the surface, much like moulding clay.

Hatching lines on these short pose examples indicate a possible direction the figure could be travelling in, only loosely indicating light and shadow.

Hatching that follows the perceived direction of action, or gesture, is a more abstract interpretation. The marks will orientate to follow the 'flow' of the subject, or the direction it is travelling in.  This can add a more dynamic sense of motion.

Key Points to remember about Hatching:

• Hatching is a way of creating tone with areas of different density parallel lines.
• Fine liners create lines of a regular width, and come in different nib sizes.
• Hatching can be used to describe multiple properties, such as tonal value, cross contours, light direction and action.

Over to You – Drawing in Fine Liner

Recommended Materials: Fineliner pens, 3 different thicknesses between 0.05mm-0.8mm

Further Reading: Lesson 02 – Contour, Lesson 04 – Tone 

Exercise 1 –  Tonal Value Scales with Hatching

Practising making different tones is a good way to warm up before starting a longer drawing, and helps with improving at making regular marks. It is also handy for getting a feel for the density of marks needed to make different tones – consider practising this with different thicknesses of pen.

This exercise can be done like the swatches of tone shown near the beginning, but it is fine to create abstract patterns of tone as well, especially if you are practising curved marks or surfaces.

Abstract patterns to practise hatching. The left side uses an 0.8mm pen, whilst the right side uses a range of thicknesses from 0.05 – 0.8mm.

Exercise 2 – Simple Object Studies

Still life studies are a good way of getting a feel for any medium, and for hatching, how to render simple volumes. For this exercise, try drawing different simple objects, and ensure you try this with both curved and flat surfaces.

Fruit and vegetables are good simple still life subjects, as they have simple volumes yet often exhibit interesting textures.

Exercise 3 – Drawing the Figure with Hatching

Using any approach, and as many contour lines as you want, draw the figure in fine liner with hatching. Allow a bit more time for this exercise. If drawing directly with pen seems too difficult, consider starting with a simple pencil sketch to block in the major areas. Try to avoid spending too long on this, and feel free to deviate from it whenever necessary.

Hatching is used to show cross contours and tone in this figure drawing.

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>> Read the Week 05: Inspiration blog post HERE (All Tiers)
>> Watch the Week 05: Hatching main lesson HERE (Student & Life Tiers)  
>> Watch the Week05: Hatching demo video HERE (Student & Life Tiers)  

Find links to the whole Tutored Life Drawing Course HERE

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