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 VII.

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, A B C D correspond to a b c d 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, w x y z is the rectangle W X Y Z of diagram No. 1; 1 2 3 4 5 correspond to A, 6 7 8 9 10 to B, 11 12 13 14 to C; while the d e and f g equal D E, F G; 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.)

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FIG. A. Examples of French Art School studies, from plates published under the direction of Bargue and Gérôme, showing method of blocking in a cast, both its outline and its shading.

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FIG. B. Method of shading in simple tones, with very little reflected light or half-tones. (See Fig. A.)

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Portraits, drawn in crayon, by Fantin-La-Tour, from his painting in the Salon of 1879. An example of the rendering of “values” in black and white.

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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.

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STUDY OF A HEAD, IN CRAYON OR PENCIL, BY DAGNAN-BOUVERET. Showing method of sketching the outline of a hat.