Pen and ink, or line art, goes back to Renaissance literary and scientific books, which were printed using woodcuts to produce illustrations of black lines on white paper. This tutorial continues the evolution of line art, by explaining how to create it using Illustrator CS2.
Line art has advantages over continuous tone or colour artwork, including quick production, lower reproduction costs and accurate visual representation. It is composed of organised patterns created by high-contrast marks, generally black marks on a white medium. By varying the density, direction, and width of those marks it is possible to simulate the three-dimensional form. Effective line art displays distinct patterns that differentiate textures, lighting and content, employs visual cues to focus the content, and will always reproduce well.