Line Art Prints

Line art is drawing rather than painting, and that one difference decides where it works. A watercolour print puts pigment across most of the sheet; a continuous-line drawing puts a few thin metres of ink on a page that is otherwise blank. There are eleven here: one-line women’s figures and faces, the head-of-flowers portraits where the hair becomes a bouquet, two hands making a pinky promise, a single rose, a black monstera leaf, a pair of black leaves and one geometric black line print. Singles start at about CA$14, the pairs at about CA$26 and the set of three at about CA$38, all printed on heavy matte paper and shipped unframed in seven sizes, 5x7 in (12.7 x 17.8 cm) up to 16x20 in (40.6 x 50.8 cm).

What does a line drawing need behind it?

A flat, plain wall. A hairline of ink has almost nothing to hold its own with, so anything busy behind the glass — patterned wallpaper, exposed brick, a crowded gallery of other prints — competes with the line and wins. Give it a plain painted wall and clear space either side. That is the opposite of what a dense watercolour needs: a wash can sit on a patterned wall and still read, because the colour does the work the line cannot.

Which of these belong in a shared room?

Be honest about the figures. Six of the eleven are a woman’s body or face drawn in one unbroken contour, and a nude line drawing is a decision about the room rather than only about the wall. Those suit a bedroom, a dressing corner, a bathroom or a study — rooms with one or two occupants. The botanical pieces, the rose, the monstera and the black leaf pair, and the pinky promise carry the same style into a hallway or a living room without asking anything of a visitor.

Does line art have to be black?

No, and the choice matters more than it looks. Black ink is punctuation: it marks the wall and holds itself apart from everything around it. The blush pink and soft blue versions of the figure prints do the opposite — they settle into a room’s palette and read as a tint rather than a statement. Choose black when the wall needs a full stop, pink or blue when the print has to belong to the colours already in the room.

For the rest of the ink-on-white work, including linocut-weight leaves and boho sun and moon sets, see the black and white prints. Minimalist prints take the same restraint into flat shapes and suns, and the feminist prints gather the figure drawings that say something more pointed.