POWER OF OUTLINE — SHADED DRAWINGS — TEXTURE — LOCAL COLOR AND VALUES — THROWN SHADOW AND MODELING SHADOW — MANNERISMS OF A CARICATURIST — BEGINNER ADVISED TO USE OUTLINE ONLY, BUT HE MAY PRACTICE IN SHADING.

HOW TO BEGIN A DRAWING — EDUCATION OF THE EYE THE FIRST THING — MANTELSHELF SEEN FRONT VIEW — SIDE VIEW BUT EXACTLY ON A LEVEL WITH THE EYE — TIPPING DOWNWARD IF ABOVE THE EYE — UPWARD IF BELOW THE EYE — PLACE THE BIG PROPORTIONS OF OBJECTS BEFORE ATTEMPTING DETAIL — THIS SHOULD SHOW PROPORTION AND DIRECTION — SEPARATE COMPLEX SUBJECTS INTO ELEMENTS — MEANING OF ELEMENTS — EVERY OBJECT HAS ITS AXIS — BEGINNING OF EVERY FIGURE SHOULD ALWAYS SHOW ITS ACTION — GENERAL PRACTICE TO PLACE ALL THE OBJECTS IN A PICTURE WITH PENCIL LINES FIRST — SOME EXAMPLES FROM MUNKACSY.

I HEAR some of my readers ask, “Is there not something a teacher should tell us that will help us whether we are drawing in outline or whether we are shading—something that will teach us how to begin any kind of a drawing?” The reply is “Yes,” and I propose to give such help in this chapter; but it has purposely been delayed till now, because I wished to emphasize the fact that the principal thing is not for me to tell you how to draw, but for me to help you to learn to see so as to know what to draw. For example, I will ask the printer to insert a rule here in a horizontal position, thus: This represents a mantelshelf seen in front view, or one seen in side view exactly on a level with your eyes. Now, it stands to reason, does it not, that anybody can {50} draw such a line? What you need to be taught, is that the mantel is to be drawn that way only under the two circumstances mentioned. The moment you have a side view of it when it is below or above the eyes, you must draw it tipping. Tipping downward (away from you) if above the eye; upward, if below. Thus, if above the eye: (A, the end nearer spectator.) Thus, if below:

This difference in the direction of line according to the position of the spectator is something the novice does not see, and it is the business of the teacher to point it out. Hence the many references to seeing and the few to drawing which are found in our foregoing chapters.

But there is a suggestion about drawing which I will give you that will help you at the first stage of your study. It is this: Accustom yourself to place something on your paper—some form having a height and a breadth—that resembles the big proportions of your subject, before you attempt to finish any single part of it.

Our illustrations clearly show the working of this method. In the Herkomer study the lower parts of the tree trunks are not finished, they are merely placed. The outlines of the trunks show (1) the relation of the two trunks to one another, (2) their size, and (3) their direction. With the same simple means the artist could have shown contrary facts; for example, that (1) the trees were nearer together, (2) that the left one was {51} STUDY OF PINE TREES BY HUBERT HERKOMER. The form above the lowest branch, which looks something like a cloud, shows us the artist’s method of “placing” a branch before finishing it; also the lower parts of the trunks show their placing. All objects should be thus outlined before they are shaded. {52} wider than the right, (3) that they tipped at an angle of fifteen degrees to our left.

Again, the mass that at first glance looks like a cloud, is really the “placing” of a branch. Now, before the artist put any of the black in his picture, which suggests the dark colors of a pine, he placed all the principal branches, limbs, and the trunks of the two trees, just as you see them in the unfinished places we have pointed out. The reader should need very little more help than this to fit him to go out to nature and begin a landscape.

Almost any element you may see can be begun in this manner. (I use the word element to cover either one object or a group of objects; we say of some picture that it has four elements: a foreground, a pine tree, a clump of trees and distant hills.) For example, without the line representing the limb below Herkomer’s outline for the unfinished branch might almost stand for a cloud—its outline would then simply be a little less toothed. Its upper part might also stand for a group of distant trees. Now, this branch, no less than the trunks, has its big proportions; it is almost twice as long as it is high, and no amount of pretty drawing of details would ever represent that branch if you should start out with a form twice as high as it is wide. Always look out for these dimensions at first. The branch also has a direction—the direction of its axis—which is downward to our left, and no amount of pretty drawing of its details would ever represent this branch if it were represented with a horizontal axis. (The axis of the lowest branch is at a still greater angle; this downward tip is characteristic of the lower branches of the pine, larch, elm, beech, willow, etc.) Now, a cloud has its {53} STUDY FOR A FIGURE IN A PAINTING. By Michael Munkacsy. This shows the placing of the parts of the figure so that it shows action, though there is no finish. {54} STUDIES FROM A MODEL FOR FIGURES IN A PAINTING. By LÉon Bonnat. These studies show the placing of the parts of the figures so that they express action, though there is no finish. {55} axis, a group of trees, and you must not draw a stratus cloud which lies horizontal as though it were a cirrus or a cumulus cloud blown upward by a contrary wind. In the placing of an element, then, it is not the margin of the outline we think of, but the positions of objects, their general bulk, and the direction of their axes.

In the figure studies we reproduce by Bonnat and Munkacsy, you can plainly see that the action of the figures is graphically portrayed without any attempt at detail, simply by “placing” the parts of the figure in the right place. A good beginning in the case of figure drawing should always show the action; that is to say, show that the man is stooping over, leaning back, standing upright or sitting down, long before the drawing shows that his coat is black or has four buttons on it, or that he has finger nails on his fingers.

It is nearly always the practice with artists to place objects in this way with a pencil line, even if the subsequent drawing is to be in pen or wash. Let your lines be light, and then you can erase them after your ink lines are put over them. Do not be afraid of feeling your way with lines; put down several until you get the right one. Do not expect to get your work right at first. If you get in a branch of a tree and think it is correct, leave it till the tree is complete; but if in the end you see it is too large for the rest of the tree, rub it out and make it smaller. Every artist has to do this many times if his subject is at all complicated.

VALUE OF A LINE — WHAT THE ARTIST SEES — LINES, NOT CONTOUR LINES, USED TO REPRESENT ORGANIC PARTS — “PLACING” ELEMENTS A MENTAL TRAINING — MORE IMPORTANT TO THE PRINTER-DRAFTSMAN THAN INTRICATE DETAIL — PLACING-LINES TO BE MADE CAREFULLY — SYNTHESIS OF THE HUMAN ARM REPRESENTED WITH A FEW LINES — THE DELIGHT OF AN ARTIST IN SYNTHETIC STUDIES — JAPANESE MASTERS OF SYNTHETIC DRAWING — GRASSET’S SILHOUETTE — THINK OF YOUR OBJECTS, WHEN PLACING THEM, AS SILHOUETTES — REDUCING CONTOUR LINES TO GEOMETRIC FIGURES — HERKOMER’S PINE TREES MAPPED OUT INTO POLYGONS — THIS METHOD NOT TO BE CARRIED TO EXCESS — CHARACTERISTICS OF OBJECTS TO BE LOOKED FOR — NATURE’S FORMS SOON RECOGNIZED IN SIMPLE POLYGONS.

IT IS difficult for the amateur to realize the value of a line as fully as the art student realizes it. We give an illustration of the first laying in or placing of a figure, as done in the Parisian art schools. The student who works for months and months in this manner sees a meaning in an artist’s lines that the casual observer misses. Here, for example, all the lines on the arm represent swellings which are not merely temporary but are organic, belonging to every arm. So also with the cross lines on the abdomen; they are not as one might expect, chance lines, but divide the trunk into organic parts. Any model taking this pose would show some such lines, or rather the body would divide itself into {58} some such parts which would produce the wrinkles which these lines represent; no matter whether he were older or younger, stouter or thinner, the markings would be in about the same place. When we come to the analyzation of the human face this fact of representing parts of the body by lines that are not outlines—i. e., not contour lines—will be still clearer to you. Now, the point we want to make is that the method of “placing” objects, recommended in the last chapter, is not a mere process of procedure in drawing, but is quite as important a mental training as the making of the most intricate outline—in fact, for the printer-draftsman it is more important than the latter. If you wish to make a poster design, it is better that you should know how to place “the elements” of a branch of oak or ivy than that you should draw the venation of the leaves or the delicate modeling of the stems, because if printed in flat tones it is the big characteristics—showing the difference between an ivy leaf and an oak leaf—that you need to secure. Therefore, in all your preliminary sketching do not work carelessly just because you are finally going to rub out your placing lines; but rather try to see how much likeness to the object you can get by the most economical means, in your very placing of the object. In the man’s arm, for example, even the inexperienced draftsman, who might not see the correctness of the drawing in the man’s trunk, can realize that we have here the swelling of the deltoid, the curve of the biceps, the extreme width at the elbow, and the inside lines which mark bones and muscles at the elbow; all of which represent the synthesis of the human arm, though perhaps not the similitude {59} of any one arm. Were you, with an artist companion, looking over a collection of drawings by the masters you would be surprised at his delight in many drawings that were carried little further than this study of an arm. The Japanese are celebrated for their synthetic drawing; they have the ability to make a spot of green that is not a lily leaf in all its intricate detail, but which has all the characteristics of a lily leaf which distinguish it from every other kind of leaf, stand for a perfect lily leaf.

If you will turn to the Grasset design on page 39 you will realize that his wisteria is by no means a complete floral drawing, but simply gives the characteristics of the wisteria in its silhouette. Here you see we revert to the subject of our second chapter, and recommend that in placing your objects you think of them as silhouettes. This wisteria design suggests another help for the beginner. The flower itself in its entirety takes the form in nature of a cone, which in silhouette is a triangle; the entire branch of the ornament on page 48 takes the form of a triangle; and since geometrical forms are more easily analyzed than natural forms, it might be well for you to train yourself to notice if an object takes the general form of a quadrangle or a rectangle, a triangle or a polygon. The branches of trees can frequently be mapped out into triangles or polygons with not more than five or six sides, that are very easy to recognize.

We have made a tracing of the pine trees by Mr. Herkomer, in which we have mapped out the branches into polygons, A, B and C (page 60). The lines DE and FG are added to suggest how the tree trunks are {60} DIAGRAM NO. 1. {61} DIAGRAM NO. 2. NO. 4—Study of Pine Tree, by Hubert Herkomer, with lines added showing rectangles wxyz, containing the whole group; polygons 1 to 14, containing branches, lines going through axes of trunk ed, and fg, and p, plumb-line to which fg is compared—that is, its angle obtained—as shown in diagram NO. 1. {62} first put in as axes, FG being compared with the plumb-line P. W, X, Y and Z suggest a quadrangle, into which the whole tree could first be placed.

We wish to say, however, that we do not consider it advisable to reduce freehand drawings to geometrical forms to too great an extent. The art student in Paris does not think of his model as a combination of cubes and cylinders, but as a human figure; nor when he leaves the atelier does he consider a tree as a combination of cylinders and cones, but as an oak tree, or a maple or a pine; and whether his drawing is a moment’s jotting in a sketch-book, or a week’s study on canvas, he tries to get as much of the characteristics of the pine tree or the oak, in the moment or in the week, as his perception will allow.

You would be surprised, if you practiced this method for a few months, to see how much meaning these first polygons will have to you. If you will map out an elm tree, for example, and then turn to our diagram No. 2, you will instantly recognize that the forms A, B, C, could never be intended for an elm. This negative recognition would be followed by positive recognition, and you would guess at least, if you were not sure, that, in a sketch of a sea coast, certain polygons put more on one side of a line than on the other, which represented a tree trunk, were meant for the branches of a pine!

ORIGINAL “PLACING” AND FINISHED DRAWING COMPARED — SIZE OF THE FRAME DOES NOT AFFECT THE PROPORTIONS IF THE SAME DIMENSIONS ARE RETAINED — BLOCKING IN SHADOWS BY OUTLINE BEFORE SHADING — ALL PRACTICE IN DRAWING LINES WILL BE HELPFUL — LINES USED FOR CONTOUR BOTH OF OBJECTS AND OF SHADOWS — FINDING THE DIRECTION OF SHADOWS — WHY PLASTER CASTS ARE USED AS STUDIES — JAPANESE ART ENTIRELY WITHOUT LIGHT AND SHADE OF THE SORT MOST USUAL IN OCCIDENTAL MODELING — NOTING VALUES — MERE SHADING NOT THE END OF DRAWING.

IN ORDER that there may be no doubt about the method of placing elements, as suggested in the last chapter, we have made skeletons (2 and 4) of the Grasset and the Herkomer cuts, on which we have marked, so that there can be no misunderstanding, the lines given in our diagrams 2 and 3. In the Grasset diagram, No. 3, ABCD correspond to abcd in skeleton diagram No. 4, while the dotted forms, E and F, No. 3, correspond to e and f, No. 4.

In the Herkomer, No. 2, wxyz is the rectangle WXYZ of diagram No. 1; 12345 correspond to A, 678910 to B, 11121314 to C; while the de and fg equal DE, FG; p is our plumb-line, P.

It must be distinctly understood that any number of objects may be contained in a rectangle; let a child scribble upon this page, anywhere, a dozen or more {64} DIAGRAM NO. 3. DIAGRAM NO. 4. {65} forms, no matter how irregular, and a perpendicular through the extreme right-hand form, one through the left, and a horizontal through the top and the bottom form, and we have a rectangle which has given dimensions. It may be twice as high as wide, or three times as wide as high, no matter, let either of those proportions be preserved, and a rectangle of the same proportions, drawn upon a visiting card or covering the wall of a barn twenty feet high, will give you the right proportions for your group. And then, if you will find inside of the rectangle, one or a dozen polygons, like A, B, C, No. 1, and f, No. 4, you will be able to “place” the most irregular objects.

We give with this chapter also, two illustrations showing the manner in which shading is done in the art schools, but the main thing I wish you to note about the illustrations is, not the shaded drawing, but the drawing where the shadow is blocked in, Fig. A. Now, this is important to bear in mind: A line is used, not only for drawing the outside outline or contour of objects, but for drawing the outline of shadows upon and within them; therefore, every bit of practice you may have in drawing lines of any kind will be helpful to you when blocking in the shapes of shadows that bring out the form of an object. It is just as imperative, for example, that you compare the inside margin of the shadows upon the wrist (as indicated in Fig. A) with the plumb-line, so as to see their direction, as it is that you compare the trunk of the Herkomer tree with the plumb-line, that you may get its direction. (In obtaining the direction of small shadows the artist very frequently uses his pencil, held vertical, as a plumb-line.)

We give another illustration that we trust will interest you, the very beautiful drawing by Fantin-La-Tour. Our object in giving this is twofold: first, to show you the drawing of the cast. We have said that the Bargue-GÉrÔme studies show how students learn to work in Paris. The truth is that nearly all over the world art students learn to draw from white plaster casts on which the shadows are very distinct. The eye is thus trained to see form, as we call it. And it will not be difficult for you to look from the cast drawing in the La-Tour to the head of the standing girl, and see how the form of her face is brought out by shading in the same manner as in the cast.

In publishing a drawing of this kind in a book for printers we do not recommend it as an example of drawing for the press (though it would be an excellent guide for lithography), but it is full of interest in that it exemplifies what artists consider artistic draftsmanship. It is evident that the author of it has studied in an art school and that he gets his effects, not by chance, but by deliberation. He is sensitive to the different degrees of darks upon the several objects. No matter how plainly he may see the shadow upon the cast, he knows that, in order to represent it as a light object, such shadows must not be black. So there is a vast difference between its dark tones and the dark tones of the block on which it stands. Also in drawing the human face he concentrates his darks about the eyes, nose and mouth; the rest of the face is shaded with great delicacy, for he knows that if he puts darks elsewhere he will get the undesirable effect of an old face. The printer is not expected to carry his art as far as this, but we must say {70} frankly that his degree of success depends entirely upon the extent of his knowledge of the truths herein stated. One need not go to an art school to see that a cast is white, and that its shadows are not as black as the shadows upon a bronze; but unless he trains his eye by observation to see this difference in other things, no tricks of pen-technic will help him when he comes to draw a white horse, or a white collar. He does not have to study portraiture in an art school in order to make a drawing in pen and ink, for his paper, from a photograph; but unless he will train himself to observe so that he realizes that in a young face the greatest darks are limited to the eyes, nose, and mouth, he will be likely to make his pen-portrait look more like an old person than a young person, even though in executing the same he imitates the most perfect pen-technic.

Now, as the placing of the shadows in the seated girl’s face is not the same, it is a little difficult for you to realize that it contains the same kind of drawing as the blocked-in cast hand and head.

But the eye becomes trained from drawing casts to see the most delicate modeling of shadows, and the seated girl’s face is really a complex style of drawing, of which the cast head and hand are simple specimens. I mean by “complex style of drawing” a method of getting effects by imitating the light and shade upon objects, as opposed to mere outline style or silhouette style.

Now, therefore, this illustration should indicate to you that it is well to draw from casts, as art students do, if you wish to make finished pictures in black and white.

In the foregoing statements I have been careful in {71} my language. I do not say students all over the world learn to draw in light and shade, for there is a great deal of wonderful Japanese art that is done entirely without knowledge of light and shade of the sort most usual in Occidental modeling. Nor do I say that you must draw from casts to learn to see light and shade, because during the middle ages many great artists learned to draw from life and not from casts. The cast is a comparatively modern art-school accessory.

Another reason for giving this La-Tour drawing is that it brings us a step farther into the consideration of values; we notice that in it the cast appears to be white, the girls’ faces and hands lighter than their gowns, and one girl’s hair lighter than the other’s. Now, when an artist makes a difference between the degrees of the color of objects, we say he notes their values.

Bear this in mind, then, that mere shading is not the end of drawing. You can go a step farther and indicate the color value of a shadow, of which more hereafter.

STUDY BY DAGNAN-BOUVERET — A HAT IN OUTLINE NOT MEANT FOR AN OUTLINE DRAWING — CONNECTING LINK BETWEEN OUTLINE AND SHADED DRAWING — MORE ABOUT ART-SCHOOL METHODS — METHOD OF DRAWING BASED UPON CAST DRAWING — THE BIG SHADOWS VERSUS MINOR SHADOWS — DO NOT DRAW INDIVIDUAL HAIRS — HAIR AND MUSTACHE TO BE CONSIDERED AS A MASS, NOT AS SEPARATE HAIRS — EFFECT TO BE OBTAINED BY MASSES OF SHADOWS — TRAIN THE EYE TO BECOME SENSITIVE TO GRADUATIONS OF LIGHT AND SHADE — LIGHT AND DARK IN THE HEAD INTENDED TO SHOW SHAPE OF THE SKULL, NOT TO INDICATE PARTI-COLORED HAIR — DRAWING FROM PASTEBOARD BOXES GOOD TRAINING IN LEARNING TO SEE LIGHT AND SHADE — CONTRASTING A FINISHED DRAWING (GAILLARD) WITH A ROUGH SKETCH — EQUAL ART IN EACH WHEN BOTH ARE WELL DONE — A NEWSPAPER CUT IN WHICH LIGHT AND SHADE ARE INDICATED BY VARIATION OF THICKNESS IN LINE — BROAD DRAWING RECOMMENDED TO PRINTERS — THE NASO-LABIAL LINE — RÉSUMÉ.

IN OUR il­lus­tra­tion by Dag­nan-Bou­ver­et we find most in­ter­est­ing in­di­ca­tions of how an ar­tist works; and this head may serve as a connecting link between the chapter on outline and the one on shading. The hat is a beautiful piece of outline drawing, which, however, was not meant for an outline drawing. It is simply to serve as the placing of the hat, which would afterward be shaded as are the face and mustache. The eyes, {74} nose and mustache were first outlined in this way, and you will recognize, I think, that this is the same kind of drawing as that of which we treated in our first chapters, though, of course, the hat is not all in one plane.

But before you can thoroughly appreciate the drawing of the face it is necessary that I should explain a little further the study of drawing as it is taught in the art schools. This I will do with the help of the Loewe-Marchand cut. In this, we see the method pursued in almost all art schools the world over: a method based upon cast drawing. It is found from experience that students learn to see form more prominently from a plaster cast, which is white, than from natural objects; and it is found that the best results are got if the students are taught to see the big shadows of an object rather than the multitude of minor shadows which may be seen upon close scrutiny. So the student is told not to look for these minor shadows, but to half close his eyes, and stand a good distance away from the object—say three times its height—and look for the form that he sees when the object becomes to his half-closed eyes nothing more than a mass with a light and a dark side. You can imagine that after a person has learned to get the effect of a hand and a foot, as in the illustration in Chapters VII and X, by merely noting the shape of the one big shadow, that it is not difficult for him to go farther and put in the minor shadows by opening his eyes and examining the object more closely; and that when he has learned to do this for several months, or perchance several years, in the antique class, and then for as long, or longer, in the life class, that he has become {75} CHARCOAL DRAWING. Portrait of M. X., by Loewe-Marchand. This drawing was doubtless made on a sheet of charcoal paper, possibly gray in color, and was then photographed for the direct process; and then, in order to indicate the gray paper, the photo-engraver tinted the zinc plate with a Ben Day film, which gives the stipple result. The cross lines in the corner indicate that after the artist made his study he wished to enlarge it upon a canvas preliminary to painting, which was done by covering the drawing with squares and adding a diagonal to the same. These squares and diagonals were repeated on a larger scale on the canvas and the drawing enlarged freehand by placing the different points of the original in the corresponding triangles on the canvas. This method of enlarging drawings has been used for five thousand years. {76} so sensitive to seeing shadows that it is not difficult for him to discern them upon anything and everything. Now, that is the secret of the beautiful drawing of the mustache in the Dagnan-Bouveret drawing. The beginner draws the hairs of the mustache, and tries to get his effect in that way; but you cannot by drawing the pelt of a fox on a barn door get the effect of one with a real live body underneath it. The result in this drawing is due entirely to Dagnan-Bouveret’s sensitiveness to light and shade. The lines, which the casual observer would take to be the hairs of the mustache, are really the shadows thrown by the groups of hairs as they part here and there. It is true that if he were etching this head or drawing it with a fine pen, he might in finishing it put in a few hairs, and even Albrecht DÜrer would sometimes get a good effect by drawing the hairs of the mustache or the curls on a head. But in nearly all modern work, the hair, mustache or beard is considered as a mass receiving light and shade, and is so treated, there being no great difference between the golden hair of a child and the white hair of an old woman.

In the beautiful study by Gaillard we see the shape of the skull under the woman’s hair, and there is a very great difference between the part that is in shadow around her ears and the part that is light on the top of her head. This does not mean that the hair was gray on top, and black around the ears, but it means that the light struck the hair on top, while it did not strike it on the sides.

Now, if you can give yourself the time to study from the cast, or even from simple pasteboard boxes, so that your eye will become sensitive to these graduations from {77} STUDY FOR THE PORTRAIT OF MME. R. By C. F. Gaillard. {78} light to dark, you will soon realize that, while in your drawing for printing you may never in a hundred years’ practice draw anything so delicate as the Gaillard, yet in your simplest drawings you may put in practice the theory upon which it is made. For example, if you are drawing an old woman’s head, even if you only use four or five lines to represent her hair, you will not press upon your pen when you are doing her hair on the top, but you will press upon it when you come within the region of the ears; and that pressure, though it will not represent hairs, nor the actual value of the shadow, will yet give the difference between the light on the top of the head and the shadow behind the ears, and this will suggest to the educated eye the roundness of the cranium.

Now we reproduce also the rough Watts drawing. Let us contrast these two drawings. The one is almost as finished as it can be, the other slight; yet I want you to realize why I recommend this slight drawing to printers and tell you that it is artistic. It is so because in the very heavy lines that you see in the ear, beard and coat there is knowledge of modeling. The artist knew his business just as Gaillard did, and every time he put down a blotty line it was meant to represent the presence of a shadow. This face is from a photograph; hundreds of delicate tones have been left out; and the white hair of the beard is modeled with nothing but thin and heavy lines while the shadows of the photograph were delicate gray tints! A clever penman drawing from a photograph uses darks which the uneducated eye will take to be arbitrary blackening of the drawing, but which an artist knows are the result of intelligent observation.

Now, in the Gaillard drawing you see a very delicate line running diagonally from the wing of the nose almost to the corner of the lips. This is called the naso-labial line, and is found in every old face. I say again, that though you work for one hundred years as a printer you would probably never draw a delicate line like this. But if you should make studies in pencil and realize that this line is typical of old age, you would be able to put it in such a drawing as the Watts (the artist has used two lines to represent it), where, you will notice, it comes down about as far on the lower lip as in the Gaillard, and you would realize why it was left out in the Dagnan-Bouveret and Marchand younger subjects.

This chapter should be exceedingly interesting to you as indicating two things—one discouraging and the other encouraging. First, that when students of art have the opportunity to work so beautifully, as in the Bargue-GÉrÔme studies, and afterward from life, as in the Gaillard, they needs must see more than you do, and you must not expect to equal them if you, a busy printer, can only practice a few evenings a week. Therefore you should not attempt subtile renderings like the Gaillard, but should confine yourself to simple means. On the other hand, when I tell you that this is about all the study there is gone through with in an art school (I say about all, for besides blocking-in, students learn a good deal about values; this we shall treat of in a succeeding chapter), it should be interesting to you to realize that if you will simply train yourself to see light and shade like the plinth in the foot studies given in Chapter XII by drawing a pasteboard box, and then afterward draw from life, so as to see that hair is darker {81} in shaded portions than in light ones, and that in an old person the naso-labial line is marked and shows darker than the cheeks, you will, when copying a photograph for your paper, no matter how roughly you work, be able to indicate the shadows in the hair and the dark naso-labial line, as in the Watts portrait. This, I say, should encourage you, and it is the only way for you to learn to draw.

HEAD BY KNAUS ANALYZED — DRAWN IN THE MANNER OF THE DAGNAN-BOUVERET AND CONTAINING LINES LIKE THE WATTS — THE NASO-LABIAL LINE USED TO DELINEATE OLD AGE — THE SHADOW OF THE NOSTRIL — THE WING OF THE NOSE — THE NOSTRIL USUALLY THE DARKEST SHADOW LINE IN A FACE.

LET US RESUME the subject of Chapter VIII. We give a fine drawing of an old man’s head by Knaus, and we will ask you to look at it and see if you cannot realize two things about it—first, that no matter how many lines there may be upon the hat, which make it look battered and different in texture from a new silk hat, it was first drawn as was the Dagnan-Bouveret given in the last chapter; secondly, do you notice the oblique naso-labial line, which we spoke of in connection with the Gaillard and Watts? and do you realize one of two things from this also, that, either this line in the original drawing ran up to the wing of the nose but was lost in the several engravings, or else the artist wished to indicate that his model was not a very old man, and he did not make the line very strong in that place? If so, you have learned some important principles that will help you in drawing, for you will be able to sketch any hat you wish to draw by the same process that the best artists employ. Again, you will be able to use proper judgment in introducing the lines into a face. If, for example, you were copying, in pen-and-ink, chalk-plate or wood engraving, {83} OLD MAN’S HEAD. Crayon Drawing by Ludwig Knaus. {84} from some half-obliterated etching or from some faded daguerreotype, an old man’s head like the Knaus, you would have the knowledge back of you that would permit you to draw in the naso-labial with proper accentuation. If you knew the original was a centenarian you would most certainly continue the line up to the wing of the nose and draw it continuously without a break; or if he were but a sexagenarian of whom the biographical dictionaries said “he carried his years lightly,” you might purposely break this line as in the Knaus.

So far, so good. And now for some other lines in the face. At the base of the nose we have the shadow of the nostril, and the curved portion of the nose around it called the wing of the nose; these are nearly always introduced into drawings. In the Knaus they are very happily drawn. Revert to the illustrations of the last chapter, and see if you can find them. In the Marchand and Gaillard they are represented by modeling rather than lines, but they are outlined in the Dagnan-Bouveret and the Watts, the former being in pencil. We notice that one of these objects is grayer than the other; which is it? It is the naso-labial line, and the shadow of the nostril is much the darker. The same effect is got in the Watts by using a fine line for the naso-labial line and a thicker line, or a blot, for the nostril. If, therefore, you were drawing the Gaillard in line, can you not realize that you would approximate the effect of our half-tone by making the outline of the wing of the nose the lightest of your lines, the naso-labial line darker, and the shadow of the nostril the darkest of the three? This order can {85} usually be followed in drawing an old person, and in almost every case (young or old) the nostril shadow is the darker of the three lines mentioned. In regard to the nostril being sometimes a line and sometimes a blot, the difference lies in the character of the original; with some persons the nostril is very straight and little of the inside of the nose shows. This was evidently the case in the Knaus original, so the artist uses a line and nothing more for the nostril (you will, however, not fail to note the subtlety of the artist’s touch, which gives us a strongly marked line for the nostril, but a more delicate line for the wing of the nose). In the Dagnan-Bouveret, however, the nostril goes up at quite an angle, exposing much more of the inside of the nose than in the Knaus; therefore, were you rendering this drawing in pen-and-ink, you could use a blot in the nostril similar in heaviness to that in the Watts portrait on page 79.

We should advise you, by the way, in following these chapters, to make tracings of all our half-tone cuts and render them in pen-line like the Watts; this will help you immensely to understand an analyzation of them.

THE ANALYZATION OF THE NASO-LABIAL LINE INDICATES THE FOUNDATION OF ART STUDY — WHEN THE LINE IS PROPERLY SEEN IT MAY BE DRAWN WITH ANY MEDIUM — CHOUDIEU HEAD BY BONNARD — ITS SIMILARITY TO THE WATTS — STRONG MARKING OF THE NASO-LABIAL LINE IN IT — A SIMILAR ANALYZATION TO THAT GIVEN THE WATTS DRAWING — PORTRAIT BY TOUSSAINT — HOW IT MIGHT BE RENDERED IN SIMPLE PEN LINES LIKE THE WATTS — DRAWING BY BONNARD — ITS HEAVY OUTLINE APPROPRIATE TO PRINTING — THE MEANING OF BLACKS IN A DRAWING — DRAWING BY BONNAT — EXAMPLE OF DRAWING BY LIGHT AND DARK MASSES — THE EMPLOYMENT OF WHITES IN SCRATCH-BOARD AND IN WOOD ENGRAVING — BONNARD’S DRAWING OF CURTAIN — BRUN DRAWING CORRECT IN COLOR VALUES — DIGRESSION IN REGARD TO FRENCH NAMES — DRAWING OF A FOOT SHOWING ART SCHOOL METHODS.

SOME of the most valuable hints we have given our readers are those of Chapters VIII and IX, in connection with the naso-labial line. In these you will find the foundation of our teaching—that is, we do not say that a human face must be made by putting in a black line running obliquely from the nose to the lip, made with such or such a pen, such or such a crayon, ink, or charcoal, but we point out the line in nature, and say that because it is found in nature, artists put it in their drawings. When not found in a face, as that of a young person, then it is left out in a good artist’s drawing of a young face. Whether he uses pen, wash, {87} or crayon, has very little to do with the case. There are some methods of using the pen, wash, or crayon, that are better than others; but, if you are taught to see the naso-labial line in nature, it is very easy to learn to draw it in one of those mediums, and having drawn it in one, it is easier to learn to draw it in other mediums.

We give, with this chapter, the head of Choudieu, in which this line is marked as conspicuously as in the HEAD OF PIERRE RENE CHOUDIEU. Drawn by Pierre Bonnard (probably from a medallion, and possibly with a quill pen), for La Revue Blanche. Watts. This drawing might have been made with an ordinary pen, somewhat worn, or (as was probably the case) with a quill pen, or with a camel’s-hair brush, or with a Japanese brush (which, like the quill pen, is a delightful instrument with which to draw heavy lines); but are we not right in surmising that you are better prepared to draw such a head because we pointed out in {88} the last chapter that the naso-labial line was a characteristic mark of an old man’s face than if we had given you directions for using the quill pen or the brush and said nothing about this line? Of course, we do not mean to suggest that, were you making a copy from this line drawing, you would be so careless as to leave out the naso-labial line, but if you were drawing an old man’s face from a photograph, might you not easily overlook this line if it had never been pointed out to you? If you agree with this proposition you will be in thorough sympathy with the spirit in which this work is written, and when our chapter on expression comes you will not at all regret that it is not a technical chapter on the use of a drawing instrument.

Now, let us consider the Choudieu drawing a little more fully, and in doing so we shall ask you to notice that the words follow almost verbatim the part of Chapter VIII referring to the Watts head. This does not mean that we are at a loss for a vocabulary, but it is done purposely so that we may thus call attention to it, and that you may realize that we have called your attention to a vital principle; moreover, that principle may be referred to again and again in almost every case where an old person’s head is under consideration. We publish also the Duc d’Aumale drawing, in which you will see the line is again marked. Now, we publish this drawing mainly in connection with the highly finished drawings illustrating Chapter VIII, by Dagnan-Bouveret, Loewe-Marchand and Gaillard, but you may profitably note also that were you tracing it, intending to make a line drawing of it in pen and ink, you would {89} THE LATE DUC D’AUMALE. Drawn in crayon, by T. Toussaint, and engraved by half-tone. {90} represent this muscular indentation with a strong line, as in the Watts portrait. You will not fail to notice also the line in the throat corresponding to the one in Bonnard’s Choudieu, now presented for consideration.

This Bonnard is a slight drawing, but it is recommended to printers because it is both artistic in treatment and easily printed. It is artistic because in the heavy lines that you see in the ear and hair there is a knowledge of modeling. The artist knew his business just as Gaillard did, and every time he put down a blotty line it was meant to represent the presence of a shadow. We have no means of determining whether this was from an actual plaster or bronze medallion, or whether the artist worked from a photograph and from his imagination rendered the effect of a modeled relief; but in either case, in the photograph or in nature, there were thousands of little tones that have been left out. A clever pen draftsman works in the same manner, using darks which the uneducated eye will take to be arbitrary blackening of the drawing, but which an artist knows is the result of the intelligent observation of the shapes of shadows, and of the most important shadows of a face. Now, one of the most conspicuous lines in this drawing is the one running diagonally from the wing of the nose almost to the corner of the lips. This is called the naso-labial line, and is found in every old face. I say again, that though you work for one hundred years as a printer, you would probably never draw as correct a line as this. But if you should make studies in pencil and realize that this line is typical of old age, you would be able to put it in such a drawing {91} PORTRAIT OF LEON COGNIET. After the painting by L. Bonnat, drawn, probably, by the painter himself, upon grained scratch-board with lithographic crayon (?), the lights scratched out with a penknife. {92} as the Bonnard where, you will notice, it comes down about as far as the lower lip, as in the Gaillard, and you would realize why it was left out in the Dagnan-Bouveret and Marchand drawings.

The Bonnat portrait of Cogniet becomes particularly interesting from this view point, e. g., practice for the sake of observation. It is executed by a process of no value to the printer of the country newspaper, but there is food for thought in the way the form is brought out by the juxtaposition of masses of light and dark that are not lines. Ordinarily we do not recommend to the printer to experiment with such effects, but rather to confine himself to outline or silhouette, but the value of the white-line will be considered in connection with wood engraving, and any practice in drawing from nature in light masses will help you appreciate the judicious use of white-line in wood engraving, or strong contrasts of white and black in any medium. We publish, for example, two very different kinds of drawing as companions to the Bonnat. One in which Verdyen has obtained an effect of the brilliancy of fireworks by scratching out whites from a very black drawing. Similar effects may be got with great ease in wood engraving.

A still more clear effect of light is got in the Bonnard tailpiece, where, by simply breaking the window sash with the light fold of a curtain, he makes us feel the color of the curtain from the top to the bottom of the picture. We should advise you to practice in any medium, endeavoring to get similar effects, as they are most valuable in saving a drawing from monotony. In the Brun drawing, for example, no casual observer {93} A FETE AT BRUSSELS. Drawn by Verdyen, probably on ruled scratch-board (see tones in the sky), with crayon, in sky, and with brush, in figures; the plate very much retouched by hand. {94} would appreciate the white pillars, and an untrained draftsman would be likely to cover them with tones, but as a matter of fact they help immensely to give variety to the drawing. In an architectural exhibition we are frequently tired by the monotony of similar drawings where the draftsmen, in their desire to render texture and local color, cover such surfaces with lines meant to represent stone, brick or mortar.

We would remark also that just as our own repetition of the Watts analysis apropos of the Bonnard’s Choudieu portrait was intentional, so the apparent conglomeration of portrait studies, landscapes and buildings is not the result of careless arrangement on our part, but is intentional, that it may be shown that a certain principle in drawing, studied from one object, may be applied to any other. If you draw a friend’s face by lamplight and pick out the lights upon it and his cuff, as in the Bonnat Cogniet, you will be prepared to pick out similar lights on portions of buildings as in the pillars in the Brun drawing; or on window curtain folds as in Bonnard’s tailpiece.

It may be interesting to printers for us to narrate the difficulty of preparing a proper legend for the Choudieu. It was a tailpiece to an article in a French magazine, and bore no legend. To all appearances it was the portrait of one Mr. Dangers, but knowing how liberal the French are in their use of cognomens, we took the precaution to investigate. A Frenchman may be born Smith, but in manhood is known to the public by one or a dozen other names. He may marry Miss Brown, and, therefore, parade as Mr. Brown; his Uncle Jones {95} TAILPIECE, BY PIERRE BONNARD. {96} may leave him money, so he publishes his articles under the name of Jones; he was born in the city of Boston, so he signs himself de Boston, meaning of, or from, Boston. Under this name he paints his first picture, but the town council does not buy his works as he hoped it would, and the council of Albany does, so he discards “de Boston” and, in his gratitude, he afterward signs his canvases d’Albany (abbreviation of de Albany). But now as to Christian names. Our friend Smith was, perhaps, named by his father Henry, but at his baptism there were added the names of Lewis and Charles and his mother’s name, Black. Then, when at the age of fifteen he comes to be confirmed, he takes the name of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, plus Mary. And with any of his surnyms he may at any time combine any two or half a dozen of these pronyms. So that a French biographical dictionary is one-half biography and one-half cross-reference. Thus—Brown, see Jones; Black, see White.

Knowing this, we referred to the periodical from which this was cut, and found it was a tailpiece to an article signed Pierre RÉnÉ Choudieu. Ah! this gave us a clue; but, who then was Dangers? Was Choudieu a sculptor as well as a writer, and was this a medallion portrait by him of Dangers? Or was it a portrait of Choudieu by a draftsman named Dangers? The artists were not mentioned in the index nor on any page in the body of the magazine, but on the title-page we found “Dessins de Pierre Bonnard,” meaning that the drawings in the magazine were by one artist—Pierre Bonnard. Therefore, D’Angers could not have been the artist, so {97} AT THE CAFÉ APHRODITE. Pen Drawing by A. Brun. {98} Example of French Art School studies, from plates published under the direction of Bargue and GÉrÔme, showing method of blocking in a cast, both outline and shadows. {99} Example of French Art School studies, from plates published under the direction of Bargue and GÉrÔme, showing method of shading in simple tones without much reflected light or half-tones. {100} we must search further; this we did, and luckily, in the back of the magazine, found the advertisement of a series of articles by Pierre Choudieu, and one of the paragraphs in it read, “Pierre RÉnÉ Choudieu, naquit a Angers,” etc. This translated meant that he, Choudieu, was born at Angers, so that we fathomed our problem at last, and give the result under the cut.

The foot plates are identical in treatment with the plates of hands given on pages 66 and 67. The reader should compare these plates, that he may understand that a method may be learned from the drawing of one object and applied to the drawing of a thousand other objects. You must not expect that in a brief treatise of this kind we can give specimens of every object that the printer may have occasion to draw—we should have to publish an encyclopÆdia for that—but we do purpose to give methods which will enable him to draw every kind of tangible object with light and shade upon it. These hands and feet studies may be used as guides to show how any such object may be “modeled,” i. e., shaded so that the object seems to be solid.

MORE ABOUT THE NASO-LABIAL LINE — IT SUGGESTS OLD AGE — ABSENT IN YOUTH — DRAWING NOT ARBITRARY — LINES INTRODUCED BECAUSE THEY ARE IN NATURE — LINES MADE BY THE ORBICULAR MUSCLE AND THE CROW’S FEET (THESE SUGGESTIVE OF OLD AGE) — LINE AT THE CORNER OF THE MOUTH — LINES MADE BY THE FRONTAL MUSCLE — SUGGESTIVE OF OLD AGE OR OF PASSION — MUCH USED BY THE ACTOR.

LET us harp a little longer upon the naso-labial line. We reproduce two very beautiful drawings by Grellet, the one of a young girl, the other of an old man. How suggestive is the old man’s head because of the strong marking of the naso-labial line. Do you not realize how easily you could draw this line, and the whole head for that matter, in the manner of the Bonnard Choudieu? But valuable as it is by itself, how much more suggestive in connection with the young girl’s head, where the naso-labial line is hardly perceptible. This is a lesson in negation, at the value of which we have hinted so often. It is your business to learn when to put in a line, but equally your business to learn when to leave it out. Therefore we give with this chapter some heads of younger persons, that you may learn this very lesson. Take the Fred Walker head. How like the Watts drawing, so far as its treatment goes; but the naso-labial line is missing. What is the result? {102} PORTRAIT OF FRED WALKER. Pen drawing by E. G. T. Note entire absence of naso-labial line, and of line about orbicular muscles. Absence of these lines indicate youth. Contrast with the Watts and Choudieu heads, where strong markings are prominent because of advanced age of the subjects. {103} Why, we have the characteristics of a younger man. In this little comparison you have the foundation of all art study. Drawing is not arbitrary; we do not introduce lines into a face simply because this artist or that artist did so; we introduce them because their counterpart is found in nature. It is not in the province of these papers, as we have said, to tell the printer how he should draw every object he may attempt to delineate—a waste-paper basket, the head of a cow, a printing press, or a hat. But we can give him hints which will help him to observe for himself the characteristics of any object under the sun which he may wish to draw. If he finds around the mouth of a cow more pronounced lines than in a calf, he must put them in. If in one trash basket the wickerwork runs upward with each line parallel, he must draw it by perpendicular parallel lines, while in another one the wickerwork is interwoven diagonally and he must represent it by diagonal lines. In a coat sleeve, the arm hanging down, there are but few cross-folds, so he introduces few cross-lines into a sketch of such a sleeve, but when the arm is bent many more folds occur at the elbow and he therefore introduces more cross-lines in his drawing of the sleeve. This is about all there is to the science of drawing.

Now let us proceed a little further. In the Watts we notice two or three lines below the lower eyelid; these we find also in the Gaillard, but they are absent in the Donatello Young Girl’s Head by Grellet; they are very perceptible in the Brontolone. Here we have to do with another muscle. In the human head the eye is {104} LITHOGRAPH CRAYON DRAWING. From bust of a young girl by Donatello, by F. Grellet. Note absence of strong marking of naso-labial line, the absence of line at the angle of the lips, and of orbicular muscles. The absence of these markings indicates youth. To be compared with the Lefebvre drawing. {105} set in a cavity in the skull called the orbital orifice, and in a very old person the lower edge of this cavity is sometimes perceptible under the flesh, and occasions a line in an artist’s drawing. But the main cause for the lines around the edge of an eye is that the eye is surrounded by a soft muscle, which is called the orbicular muscle. The part of this muscle which forms the eyelid is called the palpebral part; the part above the eyelid, the superior orbital orbicular; and the part below the lower eyelid, the inferior orbital orbicular. At the outer corner of the eye, as the two parts come together, they show in an old person’s face habitually, and in a child’s face laughter creates radiating lines called crow’s-feet. These lines called the crow’s-feet, and still more the folds in the muscles below the eye between the lower eyelid and the base of the orbital orifice are, like the naso-labial line, very conspicuous in old age and almost entirely absent in childhood. If you understand this you will turn to the beautiful drawing by Lefebvre, and realize why, although there is a great deal of shading on the hair, ear and jaw, and quite a perceptible piece of shading on the wing of the nose, there are no lines down the cheek between the eye and the lips. Indeed, in the original drawing, the white paper was there left entirely uncovered. Of course, the artist might have filled the entire space with shading, but in that case it would have been a graduated tint suggesting the roundness of the cheek, as in the Grellet Young Girl, but there would have been no suggestion of lines; the moment lines are introduced the characteristics of old age are {106} CRAYON STUDY OF A CHILD. By J. Lefebvre. Half-tone from a lithographic
reproduction by F. Grellet. suggested. At the corner of the mouth is a line which runs in about the same direction as the naso-labial line. In youth the cheek is slightly rounded out from the lip, and in a side view it is usually the outline of the cheek which makes the little line at the corner of the lips in the Lefebvre and the Grellet Young Girl, and always in the side view of a baby’s head; but as the head becomes less babyish it is the muscles of the lips which cause this line. The muscles of the lips are exactly like those of the eye; they run entirely around the lips, but at the corner of the mouth, instead of having the radiating line like the crow’s-feet, the threads of the muscle have a more perpendicular trend and create a line running in the same direction as the naso-labial line; while below this, but attached to it, is the triangular muscle of the lips, or the {107} depressor of the angle of the lips; this, in the ordinary old person, creates a long line, starting at the corner of the lip, running down considerably. This line is very conspicuous in the Brontolone, but absent in the Young Girl and the Lefebvre. It is seen plainly in the Choudieu, and we do not see how you can ask for a better lesson in drawing than the comparing of the highly finished Brontolone with the very simple Choudieu!

Once more, above the eyes the forehead is covered with the frontal muscle. The fibers run perpendicularly, but when they contract, as when a person frowns, the folds in the flesh run horizontally; these folds are particularly perceptible in old age. Though every mother will remember their alarming occurence in babyhood, we do not associate them with youth; and so in the Grellet Young Girl we find no lines in the forehead, nor are they in the Loewe-Marchand, hence a placid temperament is suggested in that portrait. Many men no older than Monsieur X. have constant lines in their forehead, and the actor uses these muscles continually for expression. We write the plural because the muscle is frequently divided into right and left portions which follow the direction of the eyebrows, so that when the muscle is contracted the eyebrow’s are no longer horizontal but have an M shape across the forehead. In the Watts there is a very perceptible line which curves over the right eye, taking the direction of the eyebrow; this is part of the frontalis muscle. If the line on the other side were completed it would take a similar direction over the left eye.

We have thus covered the muscles of the face which have most to do with expression, and so you see that, besides drawing the eyebrows, eyelashes, eyeballs, the bridge of the nose, the nostril, the lips, and the chin, the artist has to do with a great many muscles, and the novice must not only be warned about them, that he may know when to introduce them, but he must remember that they have principally to do with old age or {110} abnormal expression (laughter, grief, hate, etc.), and they must be used to express such attributes only. Hence the three English drawings represent very admirably the normal, placid expression of middle-aged men. If with the foregoing hints you attempt to draw a portrait for your newspaper, we fancy that, if you follow our advice faithfully, you will meet with more success than you imagine.

THE SCIENCE OF PEN DRAWING — PEN DRAWING MAY BE ANY SIZE — THE WATTS IN TWO SIZES — DRAWING MAY BE ENLARGED OR REDUCED — FROM THE PRINTER’S VIEWPOINT PEN TECHNIC LESS IMPORTANT AS REGARDS ITS ADAPTABILITY TO REDUCTION THAN AS REGARDS THE PRINTABILITY OF THE CUT MADE FROM IT — THE PRINTER’S OWN EXPERIENCE A GUIDE IN THIS MATTER — THREE KINDS OF PRINTING CONSIDERED, FOR CONVENIENCE CHARACTERIZED AS I. “MAGAZINE,” II. “CITY NEWSPAPER,” III. “COUNTRY NEWSPAPER” PRINTING — CROSS-HATCHED LINES SUPPOSED TO FILL UP MORE RAPIDLY THAN SINGLE LINES — PORTRAIT OF STEVENSON BY WYATT EATON THE NE PLUS ULTRA OF NEWSPAPER PORTRAITURE — THE NASO-LABIAL LINE IN THIS DRAWING SUGGESTED BY SHADING, NOT BY A SINGLE LINE — A DRAWING BY SICKERT — ANY PEN MAY BE USED FOR THESE DRAWINGS, BUT THE LINES MAINLY TO BE CONSIDERED AS THICK OR THIN, SINCE THEY MAY BE PUT UPON CHALK PLATE, AND NOT DRAWN IN PEN-AND-INK AT ALL.

IN our last chapter we said that we believed that if you would attempt to draw a portrait for your newspaper, following our advice faithfully, you would meet with more success than you would imagine. But you say, perhaps, that you are not prepared to attempt a portrait because we have given you no directions for pen drawing. Well, here you are partly right and partly wrong. There is a science of pen drawing that {112} GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS, R.A. An English newspaper cut—from Tit-Bits, artist unknown. An excellent example of newspaper work. Note that the skull-cap is not represented partly gray and partly black because the artist meant to indicate a cap that was one color in front and another in the back, but he meant to show the rounding of the cranium, just as Gaillard did in varying the tones in the hair of the old woman. An enlargement of this cut was given in Chapter VIII. If a drawing is made the size of that enlargement, it can satisfactorily be reduced to the size of the cut above. Of course it may reduce to smaller dimensions; the greater the reduction the nearer the lines come together, and their closeness makes them more difficult to print. {113} you may study with profit, but in order to draw a simple portrait for your newspaper it is not necessary for you to have any further instruction than we have given you. If it is going to pay you to follow drawing at all, you should be able at this stage of progress to make a tolerably good drawing for a newspaper portrait. But, you say, “What size should I make the drawing?” We reply, “Almost any size, though usually not smaller than the cut is to appear.” But that it may be smaller is seen by our two Watts cuts. Here is a cut the exact size of the original Watts, as it went to the engraver, who by mistake enlarged it to the size it appeared in Chapter VIII. I accepted this enlargement gladly, so as to show you that a drawing may be enlarged or reduced, but more especially with the idea of showing you the usual size that a drawing is made for reduction; for you will always be safe in making your portrait the size of the Watts in Chapter VIII if you wish it to appear the size of the present cut. I cannot over-emphasize the importance of your realizing that you have been told sufficient about pen drawing for you to go ahead and make drawings for your paper. If there is anything more to be learned I am candid in saying that you are better able to find out what it is than I am, for it is almost entirely a matter of printing, and not of engraving. Photo-engravers can nowadays reproduce almost any kind of a drawing, but a cut which might print well in a magazine might not print at all in your country newspaper. You know better than I do the trouble of “bringing up” a fine cut on poor {114} THE GRANDMOTHER. Pen Drawing, by E. Renard, from a French Catalogue. The parallel lines in the background represent a tint, and herein is the foundation of pen drawing, as distinguished from wash drawing: parallel lines are used to represent a tint; if they are farther apart they represent a lighter tint, if nearer together a darker tint; or again, if the artist presses on his pen more heavily on one set of lines than another, he can also get a darker tone without putting the lines any closer together. For newspaper work such a method is preferable to placing the lines near together; the Wyatt Eaton shows the pressing on the pen method perfectly. {115} paper, on a cylinder press, and when you are making your drawing it is for you to keep in mind the kind of paper it is to be printed on, and to keep your lines sufficiently open accordingly. Ordinary intelligence should be your guide. Let us take the Renard Grandmother for an example; in the background is a series of the simplest lines imaginable. If you should make your drawing the same size as our cut, and the lines the same distance apart, it could be easily reduced to an inch wide, and print in a magazine, but it would not then print in a country newspaper; the lines would be so near together that they would fill up. The cut might print in a city newspaper, but it is not likely. The truth is that a printer can tell better about this than I can. All I can say is that as a general thing a set of parallel lines print better than cross-hatched lines.

(In using the expressions, “a magazine,” “a city newspaper” and “a country newspaper,” to represent first, second and third class printing, I am well aware that the distinction is an arbitrary and not a real one; that sometimes by using good ink, good stock and by printing slowly, the country printer can run a cut in his newspaper with better results than can a city paper using poorer stock and ink for the sake of economy, and printing at lightning speed. But the reader will kindly let the expressions stand for (1) perfect press, good stock and ink, and expert overlaying; (2) perfect press, ordinary “news” stock, poor ink, and little overlaying; (3) poorest stock, ink, cheap press, and not expert overlaying.)

Next to the preference of one set of lines to cross-hatched lines, it is to be said that a dark is better obtained by pressing on the pen than by putting the lines near together. We publish a superb example of pen drawing for newspaper work—the Stevenson, by Wyatt Eaton. We believe that this is the ne plus ultra of newspaper portraiture, for the lines are strong and vigorous, there being no possibility of their running together in printing. I should advise you to look at this portrait under a magnifying glass that you may realize how very simple the treatment is.

McClure’s “Human Documents” contains a baker’s dozen of half-tones of Stevenson, from photographs. You might procure this pamphlet and copy the half-tones in pen, using the Wyatt Eaton as a guide.

(And in parentheses I would say you will notice that the naso-labial lines on both sides of the face are strongly marked, and yet instead of there being one line going in the direction of the muscle, as in Bonnard’s “Choudieu,” we have on the light side of the face eight perpendicular lines, and on the shaded side six blots with almost horizonal, but slightly oblique, direction! Do you not, therefore, see that it is not the kind of line you use, not a matter of “what way the lines go,” but where you put your tones, that counts in drawing? If Wyatt Eaton had not seen the strongly marked naso-labial line on Stevenson’s face, he would not have put these two triangular forms radiating from the nostril. Moreover, Eaton could have represented these lines in another way just as well. Also, it would {118} take too long to explain other subtle features of this drawing, but we would add that you will rarely see so much tone on the light cheek as in this drawing. Stevenson was an invalid, and this tone represents the sunken cheek of ill-health.)

Now, if you will examine the Sickert portrait of Wilson, you will find an equally artistic drawing, but one not quite so adaptable to newspaper printing; for the darks are partly obtained by putting the lines near together rather than by great pressure, and in our reproduction they have frequently run together where in the original print, which was 6 by 9 inches, they were separated. And so also in printing on poor paper; there is a chance that the interstices will fill up, while they would not in the Eaton.

As, however, this drawing was made for printing on a thin manila paper, not on coated paper, and there is great deal of pressure on the pen (note especially the side of the nose), which was put on knowingly by the artist, it contains much that should be imitated in newspaper work.

In regard to the way to make such heavy lines, we would say that it is a mere matter of practice; the selection of pen has little to do with it. Excellent results may be got by using a brush instead of the pen, and we dare say that Mr. Eaton used a quill pen. But as a matter of fact, the artist usually prefers to use a very fine pen such as a crow quill, or mapping pen, which is flexible, it thus being that a dark line is got, not by a blunt-pointed pen, but by allowing the nibs of {119} PORTRAIT OF C. RIVERS WILSON. Pen drawing by Walter Sickert. From the London Whirlwind, 1890. An example of artistic portrait-drawing suitable for newspapers, showing darks obtained both by placing fine lines near together (see just above mustache on shaded side), and darks obtained by pressing on the pen (see heavy lines on shaded side of nose). {120} a flexible pen to spread so that the ink flows very freely from it. For ordinary purposes a Gillot 303 or 170 is frequently used by the artists. But it is a matter of practice mainly, and the pen you usually write with is apt to be the best medium for practice at first. In fact, we are particularly anxious to have our reader not worry about pen technic. Let him realize that he might wish to put his drawing upon the chalk plate, in which case he would make a tracing of a photograph, and, placing it upon the chalk, press upon it with a hard-pointed pencil, and thus transfer his outline into an indentation on the chalk. He would then take the scraping tool and clear away the chalk wherever he wishes a line. The fact being that he would introduce lines only where he knew there should be lines in nature, as in the case of the naso-labial line, the eyelids, etc.; and he would broaden his lines only where he knew the tones should be darker in nature than where he had used a set of fine lines. There would be no use of pen at all!

So you see we have come right to the milk in the cocoanut—right to the matter this series was to teach. Many readers no doubt were disgusted when they did not find in our first chapters directions for the use of the pen and a list of materials for pen drawing, but those who may have occasion to do their portraits in chalk plate will thank us for our hints on the study of nature and the study of lines, no matter how made.

STUDY OF PEN TECHNIC CONTINUED — THE PRINTER MUST NOT EXPECT THE KNOWLEDGE OF PEN TECHNIC TO TAKE THE PLACE OF KNOWLEDGE OF DRAWING — EXAMPLES CONSIDERED — THE GRANDMOTHER BY RENARD — THE MARCHETTI, THE VIERGE, THE ST. ELME, ARE GOOD EXAMPLES OF PEN DRAWING — THE GUILLAUME AN AMUSING EXAMPLE OF USE OF PARALLEL LINES — THE FORAIN A GOOD EXAMPLE OF NEWSPAPER CARTOON STYLE; THE VALLET, OF NEWSPAPER NEWS STYLE — THE MOULLIER AN EXAMPLE OF ECCENTRIC USE OF DOTS — METHOD OF PEN PRACTICE SUGGESTED.

JUDICIOUS INITIAL LETTER BY MARCHETTI. Pen drawing from Paris IllustrÉ. study of pen tech­nic is help­ful to the prin­ter-de­signer. I use the ad­jec­tive “ju­di­cious” be­cause I need a word be­gin­ning with J for our in­i­tial let­ter. What I mean is, that just so far as the prin­ter stu­dies draw­ing, he may study pen tech­nic, but he must not ex­pect to pro­gress fur­ther in the lat­ter than he has pro­gressed in the for­mer; so while this chap­ter will be ex­cee­ding­ly help­ful to the read­er who has fol­lowed the pre­vious ones, it will only lead to fail­ure

{122} ILLUSTRATION TO PABLO DE SEGOVIE. Pen drawing by Daniel Vierge, one of the most celebrated of modern pen-draftsmen. If you will scrutinize this drawing under a magnifying glass you can examine this technic with more ease than with the naked eye. see larger {123} if the reader does not follow our advice in regard to training the eyes to see as well as in regard to pen technic.

We said in our last chapter that the parallel lines in the background of “The Grandmother,” by Renard, showed the foundation of pen drawing. The same is Illustration (pen drawing);
chapter heading, but without
initial letter, by Marchetti.
From Paris IllustrÉ. true of our initial letter, in which we find a set of parallel lines which, contrasted with the white of the illumination thrown by the lantern, gives us an effect of gray. This is found again in the other drawing by Marchetti; and if you will study these two drawings, and then turn to the Vierge, you will find that nine-tenths of it is drawn in the same way. Here and there to get a certain vibration of tone, Vierge uses crosshatch, but you will notice that the lightest gray and the intensest dark are got without crosshatching.

In the St. Elme you may also distinguish very clever use of parallel lines, without much crosshatching. We have purposely reproduced this, together with the page it decorated, so that you may see the artist had a good reason for not crosshatching; he wished his drawing to form a decoration about the page, and he did not want it to be too heavy, so he abstained from crosshatching. {124} Pen drawing by St. Elme, decorating a page of a French journal, 9¹/₂ by 13, showing a clever use of parallel lines, and a method of decorating a printed page, which will be considered later on. see larger {125} The best practice for you is to make drawings for your publication in any manner you see fit, and after you have had experience in printing the same, you can tell very well how much crosshatching is advisable, and how much clogs up in the printing. There are Caricature of the French painter (whose works are somewhat dark and misty in effect) EugÈne CarriÈre at work. By Guillaume. From the French daily, Gil Blas. several caricaturists in this country whose work is printed in daily papers in a thoroughly satisfactory manner, and yet they use a great deal of crosshatching, but of course they know just how open to keep the lines, for they know just what results their printer can {126} get and what not. But we would say it is a good principle, to begin with, that the less crosshatching in your work the better it will print. Hence the Marchetti and St. Elme drawings are given as examples.

In the portrait of the painter CarriÈre, we have an amusing example of the effective use of parallel lines. Instead of giving us a black silhouette, the artist—Guillaume—has given us a gray one, which suggests the subject seen through a fog. Had the artist wished to represent the palette as being of dark wood he could have pressed on his pen lines and thus given us that effect. Had he wished to show that the canvas was lighter than the figure, he could have refrained from pressing so heavily on his pen lines, or, better still, distributed his lines farther apart and thus obtained the effect of a lighter tone. Bear in mind, however, that I used the term pen lines in speaking of this drawing because the original was made in that medium, but the same graduation or contrast of lines is applicable to nearly all methods of line drawing; to etching and chalk plate as well. You will, perhaps, have a better grasp of the subject by thinking of it as—the theory of tone imitation by lines.

When you have grasped the theory of this pen technic, alias the representing of tone by lines, you will be prepared to make your own deductions from various specimens of illustration.

Some of our friends, for example, who might have been interested in our first chapters and the specimens of caricature given therein, may have been disappointed {127} that we have given so much attention to portraiture recently, so we have made an effort in this chapter to give a mÉlange that will cover many fields of newspaper illustration. In the Forain we have a splendid example of such work. It was printed on very poor paper stock, but it came out admirably, harmonizing with the type, which is larger than that used in this country, long NEWSPAPER CARICATURE. By Forain, from Figaro. This composition evidently makes fun of Mr. Berthelot, who has had, or expects to have, some dealings with England, for the visitor says, “May I see my honorable master?” and the maid responds, “Mr. Berthelot is not receiving; he is taking an English lesson.” The cut in Figaro was 8 by 8, and it represents an excellent method of newspaper drawing, and one that could be easily imitated in chalk plate. We would also call attention to the drawing of the broom. Our readers who followed the directions of our first chapters will see that the silhouette of the broom is indicated in a masterly manner. {128} Example of news drawing, by L. Vallet, from a French periodical. {129} primer predominating. The drawing of the still-life objects is particularly interesting. Look at the duster the woman holds: is not its form exactly what you would see if it were held up against the window and viewed in silhouette?

A good example of a news illustration is given in the Vallet page, which could easily be imitated in chalk plate. The artist viewed a collection of English army costumes, or witnessed a drill, and he shows us in very simple lines the style of accouterment. Any newspaper editor who could sketch tolerably well could do the same thing for his county fair.

In the Moullier we have a specimen that is well-nigh as amusing as the artist in the fog, for here we have a pen drawing that is not made by lines, but by a series of stipples. While the newspaper tyro should not employ this technic too frequently in his practice, still, realizing that the tone effect is graphically gained without the use of the conventional line, it must quickly dawn upon him that there are many technics, and, having practiced drawing mantelshelves according to the instructions in our early chapters, he will also appreciate the fact that the artist was in front of this mantelshelf, as the horizontal lines do not tip, and that the shelf was higher than his eye, as the top of the mantel is not shown. This knowledge gathered allows the student to see that various technics may represent the same truth in nature.

A good method of practice for pen work is as follows: Take a wood engraving or half-tone from some {130} Pen drawing by Marc Moullier, for La Plume, showing a clever and eccentric use of dots. It may be remarked that since the mantelpiece is above the eye we cannot see the top of it. It is parallel to the artist’s eyes, and so is represented as a horizontal line. So far as correct drawing is concerned, it makes no difference how that line is made. One artist makes it a thick line with a blunt pen, another a thin line with a fine pen, and another, like Moullier, makes it with a series of dots, but each of these methods is a matter of technic, and the rules of technic are arbitrary, not fixed as are the rules for drawing. You may invent your own technic, but you cannot invent perspective. {131} periodical, the larger the better, go over the back of it with a blue pencil, lay it on a sheet of bristol board or paper, face upward, and go over the outline with a hard pencil, using such a pressure as will transfer to the bristol board a blue outline. The object in using blue is, that you do not have to erase it, but may work over it with a pen, as the blue does not photograph. Besides transferring the outline it is also advisable to outline the shape of any of the shadows you intend to introduce. You then endeavor with the pen lines to imitate the delicate shadows of the half-tone or wood cut. Perhaps instead of saying imitate, we would better say approximate, for you must not expect to be able to imitate with pen the extreme delicacy of a half-tone.

A CHAPTER OF ILLUS­TRA­TIONS AND A RÉSUMÉ — VAL­LOT­TON HEADS ONLY UNDER­STOOD BY THOSE WHO CAN SEE LIGHT AND SHADE UPON OB­JECTS — ME­DAL­LIONS BY DAVID D’ANGERS SHOWING THE PLANES OF THE FACE — THESE PLANES BROUGHT OUT IN SOME OF THE VALLOTTON HEADS, AND IN MEDALLIONS BY LORMIER AND D’ILLZACH, AND IN DRAWING BY CHAUME — LANDSCAPE BY LE ROUX, CARICATURE BY FORAIN — THE LE ROUX AND THE PAUL DRAWINGS INDICATE THE FORCE OF OUTLINE — EXAMPLES OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF TECHNIC.

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