Drawing for Printers. / A practical treatise on the art of designing and illustrating in connection with typography. Containing complete instruction, fully illustrated, concerning the art of drawing, for the beginner as well as the more advanced student.

by Ernest Knaufft

CHAPTER V.

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.

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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.

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Example of French Art School studies from plates published under the direction of Bargue and Gérôme, showing the method of placing a figure before drawing the final outline or shading; also showing lines on the jaw, in the trunk and leg that are not contour lines.