Petted Lines in Underlying Sketch?

[Aaron123]

Hey there,

As I've come to find out, petted lines, or replicating a long flowing line through the use of short sketchy ones, have been widely looked down across the board in the art community. I've found that some of my own drawings have used this, and the whole situation is making me a little edgy and self-conscious about my work.

Anyway, the situation for this arises: when I'm doing rough sketchwork on which to overlay my final image, I find myself blocking in the forms I want, running my pencil over itself over and over a bit to achieve the correct curve and weight I want. Is this considered line petting? I also find myself doing a similar technique in order to bold the lines for my final image. Perhaps I should be practicing getting lines in single strokes with varying weight?

Thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated. :)

[ShroudStar]

I would practice drawing with pen for a while, because it's helped me tremendously with laying down one deliberate line instead of petting it. With a pen, it looks better if you get it right the first time instead of dawdling around with your lines. As a result, I'm able to transfer that training to my pencil sketches and I think before I lay it down, which gives me smooth lines each time.

[rpace]

Gaining more control is always good and will come with more experience, but this "anti-petting lines" thing sounds like bullshit to me.

If you want a long, smooth curved line and you achieve it by smaller strokes, holding the pencil with your teeth, or using a french curve; who cares as long as it looks right in the final image?

~R

[Aaron123]

Y'see, rpace, that was exactly my opinion too. If a great image is formed in the end, why do I care how you achieved it? In another forum, a guy was just viciously lambasting me over my lack of thinking that it was an issue--and I've been pondering over it for a couple of days now consequently.

[HunterKiller_]

It's not about 'petted' lines or 'flowing' lines.
It's about how well you can control your line and make it do exactly what you want.

[DavePalumbo]

the reason that people discourage using short choppy lines is that you generally want to avoid using lines that look hesitant or insecure. There's no rule as to what your drawings should look like, but that's the issue with choppy lines.

[Grief]

'petting'? i was unaware that there was a term for applying lines in this fashion let alone a consensus saying that it directly causes it to become bad art.

stroke is something that has a visual quality to it beyond merely being contour. as mr palumbo mentioned it tends to cause the viewer to associate the short jagged lines with almost a claustrophobic fearful unwillingness to express the line brazenly. some may be off put by the neurotic and insecure nature of the line as it tends to be associated with tracing or a general lack of commitment to the idea of the line.

but don't go believing assholes who say this is a bad thing. why can't our stroke contain weakness? does this make us bad artists? who are these pompous turds that are dictating what is acceptable in art? if i want my lines to look like chicken scratches then i'll do it. that said i also do not believe you should pigeon-hole yourself into always using lines in one way, as the textural aspect of them can be used in a vast array. having flowing consistent lines isn't always the answer to the artistic problem at hand.

if you're getting stuck unable to work with lines in any other method, try blind contour drawings, or any exercise that causes you to not lift the pencil. experiment, use the your sketchbook and fill it up. not everything put on paper has to be a masterpiece, so don't be afraid to commit time to something you initially see as not yielding the results you desire. make a mess and have fun.

[Virg]

i agree that as long as the final result looks good, who cares about the way you drew your undersketch, the idea is to grasp what is in your brain and follow some kind of instinct.. however if your clean drawing got '' petted '' lines that break the flow of a contour, then your drawing may suffer from it, thats the way i see it. It took me a lot of struggling and thinking to realise that as long as what your sketching is not part of the ''perfectly clean '' part of the picture creation, your 100% free to stay loose and experiment and go over your lines again, just be careful not to darken your sheet to fast. Like the others said, practicing blind contour will help you realise the good value of a clean contour and its importance in the truth of what you see, not lifting your pencil on the paper seems to help keep a good flow and rythm between all the elements of a figure or everything else.