Art and artists
Line Safari
Go hunting for eight kinds of lines and draw one of each: zigzag, wavy, dotted, spiral and more.
Thinking sheet · Art and artists
Hatching Practice
Shade with lines instead of smudges: hatching, crosshatching and scribble shading, from light to dark.
- Grades
- 2–5
- Time
- about 20 minutes
- Topic
- Art and artists
- Kids practice
- shading, line control, value
What kids do
“Lines can make shadows! Close lines look dark and far-apart lines look light.”
- Hatching (lines one way)
- Crosshatching (two ways)
- Scribble shading
- Hatch some fur
- Hatch a tree trunk
- Hatch a rock
- Draw your shoe and shade it with lines only
- The hardest part was…
How to run it
- Pencils or fine markers work best.
- Keep the lines going the same direction for hatching.
- Change the direction of the lines to follow the shape: curved for fur, straight for wood.
Talk about it
- Which shading looks the darkest?
- Which looks like fur? Which looks like metal?
- Where would you use this in a drawing?
Take it further
Find hatching in a comic or an old engraving and copy a small part.
Pairs well with
Free for home and classroom use. Print as many copies as you need.
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