I’ve mentioned before, that I—once upon a time, thought I’d invented an illustration technique that dates back 450 years. -- It’s an engraving technique that renders shape and shadow by creating lines of varying thickness, cross hatching them and then dotting the blank areas in the cross hatch to create extra depth. -- Dotted lozenge—I’m obsessed with the technique and have been trying to master it with a pen ever since I started, before I even knew it had a name. This illustration of a red deer comes close to the best example I have of this technique. — The story goes, a 16th century draftsman called Hendrik Goltzius developed a style late in his life and evolved a technique of shading that was directly influenced by other master engravers that came before him. Albrecht Dürer's line and dot technique had lines and dots but no dots in-between the lines. Giulio Campagnola was the inventor of dot shading, but rarely shaded with lines. Master E. S. was all about straight line crosshatching, no dots, and his lines were rarely curved. Martin Schongauer (c.1448–1491) was the first to contour straight lines, but they were mostly uniformed thickness. Then Jacques Callot (c.1592–1635) created lines of varying thicknesses, no dots though. -- There are only a few artists who practised this technique, there’s Goltzius and sometimes Sadeler. But that’s it! If you know of any others I’d kill to know! — #dottedlozenge #dotandlozenge #pointillism #dotshading #dotwork #linework #masterengraver #hendrikgoltzius #sadeler #albrechtdürer #durer #illustrator #illustration #technique #blacklines #penandink https://www.instagram.com/p/CAkCRJaDqhP/?igshid=1sd5v5no1mchr

Last night I inadvertently gave away one of my biggest artistic secrets by showing you a shading technique that I once thought I invented. Ha! -- 5 years ago I thought I invented a new technique of rendering by creating lines of varying thickness, cross hatching them and then dotting the blank areas in the cross hatch to create depth. -- At the time I called it "diamond dots" and it was a combination of three existing techniques: pointillism, line shading and crosshatching. Turns out i was about 450 years too late though. -- A 16th century engraver called Hendrik Goltzius (1558–1617) had developed this style late in his life and evolved a technique of shading that was directly influenced by other master engravers that came before him. Albrecht Dürer's (1471–1528) line and dot technique had lines and dots but no dots in-between the lines. Giulio Campagnola (c.1482–after 1515) was the inventor of dot shading, but rarely shaded with lines. Master E. S. (active c. 1450–67) was all about straight line crosshatching, no dots, and his lines were rarely curved. Martin Schongauer (c.1448–1491) was the first to contour straight lines, but they were mostly uniformed thickness. Then Jacques Callot (c.1592–1635) created lines of varying thicknesses, no dots though. -- The combination of all of those techniques were celebrated by Hendrik Goltzius and he developed what's now called the "dotted lozenge" technique. I wonder how he celebrated the finding and whether or not he had a one-man mosh pit in his studio listening to Swedish death metal gods @darktranquillityofficial, like I did. I guess we'll never know. 🤷 -- #dottedlozenge #dotandlozenge #pointillism #dotshading #dotwork #linework #masterengraver #hendrikgoltzius #albrechtdürer #durer #illustrator #illustration #blacklines #penandink https://www.instagram.com/p/BtR_pxjnagN/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1dssuajm2ksci