Lines and Shapes coming to Life

Although this comic strip is not in color it still shows detail while just using different shades of black and grey ink. In the first box if you look at the tree behind the grandma there are lines on the tree trunk that make it so it is apparent to the viewer that this is indeed a tree. The lines are textural and somewhat directional. The lines drawn towards the sky and upward help to show direction or indicate size. Also, they help to add or show texture to the tree so that we know that it is possibly bark or darker pieces of wood that is slightly extended off the stump showing texture. This is just a few of the lines used in this comic.

In the second box we can clearly see as the viewer that the grandson is looking towards the ground. We know he is looking towards the ground because of the use of "eye lines". Eye lines help show the viewer where the people in the image are looking. These lines help indicate where the people are looking and help to also show some emotion. The grandson has his eyes drawn looking straight down, showing disappointment and lack of enthusiasm towards what his grandma is saying. We know all this because of the eye lines drawn.

In the third box we can tell that the grandma is wearing a long sleeve shirt that she possible had rolled the sleeves up on. We can tell this because the lines that are drawn on the shirt closer to where the end of the sleeve is, look to appear like the creases in fabric as well as the lines that show a rolled cuff at the bottom of the sleeve. These lines drawn on the shirt help us see what we are looking at. They gave more description to the shirt. We now were able to tell that it was loose and rolled and possibly from cotton material. All from the lines, which we call these lines descriptive lines. The shirt at the cuff also uses what is called a contour line.

Contour lines are lines that help show or add image to an object or person. In the last box if you look at the arms of the chair that the boy is sitting in we can see that the end of the arms of the chair are rounded and appear smooth like. We can see detail added with gestural quality lines that are the actual "curving" or "rounding" of the line. This gives shape to the chair and help us to in vision it. The lines drawn on the inside of the chair help to show the texture of the chair. It give the look of a soft chair that forms to the boys shape and gets the "sinking" look with ripples in the fabric of the chair.

There are a lot of things that go into making a comic and making it appear some what realistic so that the viewer can relate to or see what the object is. Lines of all types help to do this. When drawn a certain way within a certain object lines help to define the drawings.