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 XII.

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.)

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PORTRAIT OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. Drawn, probably with a quill pen, by Wyatt Eaton, in 1888, the original 8 by 10 inches. The drawing was made in an open manner so that it would print on the poorest kind of paper, as it was used as a placard to announce a story by Stevenson, in the New York Sun. Reproduced by kind permission of the S. S. McClure Co., by whom it is copyrighted. A reduction of this drawing, greater than the above, adorned the cover of the March, 1897, McClure’s Magazine.

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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.