In Pursuit of a Line

Is this it?!

Jan 20, 2024

As a drawing-type person, I’ve long been on a journey for… the perfect line.

You may be thinking: Sara, this is futile. There is no such thing as perfection and it’s a fool’s errand to attempt it. You’re overthinking it.

And to that I say: blah blah blah, leave me alone! I am on a quest!

I love lines. So let’s start with some of my favorites:

QUENTIN BLAKE

Quentin Blake’s drawings from The Twits (and everything else) absolutely captivated me as a kid and still do today. He’s loose, a bit grotesque at times, naive at others. I’m a very tight drawer, so his line feels like a tropical vacation to me—romantic, relatively unattainable (I’m freezing my buns off in Minnesota right now). I scoured this page on his website to see if I could discern what tools he uses to draw. I don’t think it matters… it’s in the hand!

TOVE JANSSON

I’m getting emotional browsing Tove Jansson’s work for this post! There may be no book that speaks to me the way Moominpappa at Sea does. This image is from Comet in Moominland, also a brilliant book and filled with mystical, adventurous images like this one. Tove was a master of the hash-mark and stipple, as well as contrast/value and the power of negative space. Her drawing work is definitely kindred to etching. (This post is not about writing, but Tove’s is among my most favorite and dear. Perfect for imaginative children and psychologically burdened yet romantic adults).

BEN SHAHN

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I *think* Ben Shahn used a brush and not a pen. Sometimes I wonder if he was using a stick!? But I think his ink on paper works were primarily done with a relatively dry brush, and a very controlled and intentional shaky hand. I love how rigid his work is, yet it has this sort of delicacy in its quality of line. His line is FULL of tension. Ben Shahn illustrated Ounce, Dice, Trice by Alistair Reid, another absolute favorite book of mine. It’s full of delicious nonsense, AND it contains a very bad drawing of a cat. When I need to feel heartened about my work, I think about THE Ben Shahn going to print with *that* cat drawing, and I feel better. I’m leaving the cat drawing unpictured so that when you check the book out of the library, you have to find it, and then you’ll have to let me know what you think.

ANDY WARHOL

It wasn’t until this last year that I realized that Andy Warhol had a pre-pop art career in illustration. He was prolific. And his line! Mysteriously blotted yet so intentional! Every time I find a line I love, I google it and tend to come up with nothin’ as to how it was made. However, the fine folks at The Warhol have actually put together a tutorial on how he achieved this line! His technique is brilliant and laborious, just how I like it.

I have love for many more lines, though I think I’ll leave it at four for now.

As for my quest, it’s ongoing. I’ve spent a lot of time over the last several years trying to find the perfect line for me. I’ve found a few that I really love… like this one:

Sara Fowler, *Mistake Waltz*, Ink on paper, 2021

…which has been with me for a while now. But I am still figuring out how to combine line with shape/color in a way that feels… right. I think I am getting close, and I’m looking forward to spending more time in the studio experimenting this year.

BTW, the above drawing is based on a real dance called Mistake Waltz, choreographed by Jerome Robbins.

And…

I tried out the Andy Warhol method this week! I’m excited to play with it some more.

First, an old drawing to use as reference: