LINES DON'T JUST

Tap the link in my bio to start the drawing drills course. Cross contour hatching is powerful because every line gets to do two jobs at once. It creates value AND describes form. Instead of laying a flat grid of hatch marks over your subject, let the lines wrap around the surface. As the form bends, turns, or changes planes, your hatching changes direction with it. Now the viewer isn’t just seeing where the object gets darker. They’re getting information about exactly how that surface exists in three-dimensional space. That’s why I love teaching this technique in the Drawing Drills. If you’re already going to put hundreds of lines into your shading, make those lines work harder. Shade the form while you describe the form.