What is outline drawing?

When we think about line drawing, the first thought that comes is often
"outline drawing". This is however such a vague concept as to be
virtually meaningless.

Line in terms of some kind of outline around objects, does not exist.
The lines we draw is an indication of where something takes place. So a
contour line is an indication of where an object stops and the
background "begins". Of course the object, say a face, does not ever
stop, it simply turns away from us. It is this kind of turning away of
form which is termed "contour". So the edge of a form is not an outline
but a contour, and is indicated by a contour line.

Two simple drawings can illustrate this. In the first drawing the line
is used to indicate contour, the turning away of forms, and in the
second drawing the line describes the silhouette of a face, that is,
the point at which the object obscures the background. The result is
markedly different.



The first drawing explores the structures of the face, eyes,
cheekbones, the fall of the hair. There is no question that contour
drawing is the most difficult skill in art. It was mastered by a
handful of artists throughout history, Michelangelo, Leonardo,
Botticelli, Dürer, Rubens, Ingres, Leighton. Maybe this explains
Ingres' advice to the young Degas, "Draw lines, young man, draw many
lines."

The second drawing is a simple silhouette, as if the headshape was cut
out of a sheet of paper. To achieve accuracy in a silhouette is still
very difficult, but it is much less taxing than trying to define the
structures that make the face. For this reason it is a good way to
start drawing. Until and unless we can get the simple silhouette right,
we have no hope of getting the features.

In all line drawing it is the abstract qualities of the line as much as
its visual accuracy which make a drawing expressive: the sweep, the
breadth, the nervousness or force of the line. But in the words of
Leonardo da Vinci, it is the simple accuracy of vision which makes us
value an artist as competent.

"That is the most praiseworthy painting which has most
conformity with the thing represented." --Leonardo

It is precisely because our greatest achievement, and our highest art,
is so difficult, that the idea of cheating at it is so awful. It was Degas who called drawing the probity of art. Probity, meaning integrity, or honesty.