Visual Language - Line Quality

Line quality is something I always notice in people's work, although never consciously. I feel it is often overlooked how important line quality is to the make up of an image; it truly is everything. The way a drawing is created and received is solely down to the quality of the line that forms it.
I find mark making exercises very useful as it always refreshes me on the sheer variety of marks that we are capable of creating, reminding me of the many different ways that I can make an image. I find it is very easy to get stuck in a routine of drawing a certain way, with a set line quality without ever considering how else I could be drawing, usually in ways that could be more effective. The slides really refreshed my inspiration too along with the quotes, motivating me to really want to try and draw more, every day, to really progress my image making abilities. At the moment I am struggling slightly with idea creation and even when I do get an idea, the translation of that image from my head to the paper. But I believe if my drawing skill was greater then this would be less of an issue.

I really enjoyed this studio task, although did find that at a point I was struggling with coming up with new line qualities to explore. Changing tool was an obvious solution but then with some, the nibs only allowed for a limited amount of variation. The brush outcomes are my favourite, I love the texture that is created from the bristles, the unpredictability of the medium makes it exciting and ever changing. No two marks with a brush are the same and that is something that motivates me to create more. 

From these line quality explorations I created some portraits of Alex in an attempt to put them to use. This is the most effective one in my opinion, created by dipping the wrong end of a pencil in ink. The variety of line weight and quality made by doing this is what makes the image so interesting; the pencil is not at all absorbent, so only holds a little amount of ink each time, meaning the line fades out quite quickly. These tapered lines are very expressive and always unique, similar to the brush but aesthetically very different. The fact that the tip of the pencil is only small means the line weight is quite light also, making quite a delicate image overall.