Lines That Make Shadows: Cross-Hatching

Look at your hand. Hold it near a lamp or a window. Notice the shadows in the dips between your fingers. Now here is a puzzle: artists can show those shadows using only straight lines — no smudging, no grey paint. How do you think that works? Think about it for 30 seconds before we find out.

Artists use lines to create the feeling of shadow and depth in a drawing. One of the most useful techniques is called hatching. Hatching means drawing a set of parallel lines — lines that run side by side in the same direction, like a row of fence posts. The lines are close together, but they do not cross each other. Cross-hatching takes this one step further. You draw a first layer of parallel lines, and then you draw a second layer on top going in a different direction — usually at an angle across the first set. The lines cross each other, making a grid-like pattern. This is cross-hatching. Why does it work? When your lines are close together and cross each other, very little white paper shows through. Your eye mixes the ink and the tiny white gaps together and reads the area as dark grey or even almost black. Where lines are further apart, more white paper shows, so that area looks lighter. You can build up layers to make areas even darker. The more layers of crossing lines you add, the deeper the shadow looks. Artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer used cross-hatching in their pen drawings hundreds of years ago. You can find it in comic books, scientific illustrations, and architectural drawings today.