Smoke Pictures
To produce wonderfully picturesque and striking examples of land and seascapes in the space of a few moments of time appears at first sight a task almost beyond the capabilities of the amateur draughtsman. Yet such effective additions may be made to the programme of the lightning cartoonist by his following out the subjoined simple instructions.
First procure a large sheet of iron or tin, enameled white. To purchase this in a prepared state is rather expensive, but a very fair substitute can be made by coating the tin or iron with ordinary white enamel.
Smoke the enamel surface to a uniform blackness by passing it backwards and forwards over an ordinary small hand-lamp, the glass chimney of which has been removed. Fix the black sheet to the easel, either resting it on a wooden rack or across the pegs.
Fig. 13.—Sketch to memorize for smoke picture.
Fig. 14.—Completed smoke picture.
Before commencing on the actual drawing, memorize a suitable subject, such as a stretch of water gleaming under the moon, with light reflections, as in [Fig. 13]. The effect of the finished picture may now be obtained by wiping out the black so that the white enamel shows through and forms the lights. The removal of the black may be accomplished either with the fingers or by means of a soft piece of rag. In view of the fact that the fingers form a better medium for drawing than does the rag the use of the former is recommended, but as the cartoonist may have arranged to follow this part of his entertainment with other drawings on white paper, he would do well, while dealing with the smoked surface to cover his finger-tips with stalls cut from old kid gloves. These can be discarded without the necessity for a break in the performance, as would be the case were the fingers blackened in the process. [Fig. 14] shows the finished smoke picture produced from the sketch in [Fig. 13].
A. Blue. B. Brown. C. Green. D. Dark green.
Fig. 15.—A reversible scene.
Fig. 16.—Initial sketch for “house on the cliff” drawing.