BEAUTY IN COMMON THINGS

WE'RE MADE SO THAT WE LOVE FIRST WHEN WE SEE THEM PAINTED, THINGS WE HAVE PASSED PERHAPS A HUNDRED TIMES, NOR CARED TO SEE. FRA LIPPO LIPPI. ROBERT BROWNING.

Learning to See Beauty.

How We See Things. The best thing that our lessons in drawing and painting can do for us is to teach us to see. To truly see a thing means that eyes and brains must work together. Our eyes must look and our brains must think; that is what gives us the power to see.

Interesting Things Out of Doors. When you were making a special study of landscape, you found that many things out of doors that you had not thought about before, became very interesting to you. You began to notice the colors of the sky and earth, the shapes of trees, the forms of clouds, the change from day to night. These things had always been around you, but you had not thought about them, and so you had not really seen them.

Observing Our Surroundings. Your lessons from flowers and plants, and from birds and animals help you to see and enjoy much more in nature than you did before. A walk in the country, or even along the city street, is never dull to one who is interested in what is going on around him, and whose eyes are trained to really see.

Beauty in Common Things. Not all of the beauty of the world is out of doors. Things about us in our homes are often interesting in their character, and they should be beautiful as well. The picture on the opposite page shows you an old-fashioned kitchen fireside. The wide hearth, the logs of wood, the andirons, the pots and kettles hanging over the fire, all give you a sense of homely comfort and cheer. Would you not like to draw your chair close to the blazing logs on a cold winter night, and roast apples, or pop corn, while the wind howled and roared up the big chimney? There is real beauty in this picture of home and the common things of every-day use.

Finding and Expressing Beauty. In the houses we live in nowadays, there may be no kitchen fireplaces like this; but the thought that we get from the picture is that beauty may be found in those things for which we sometimes care the least. Let us study the common dishes we cook with, the vegetables that come from market or garden, the furniture we use every day. Let us discover for ourselves whether these things are beautiful or ugly. If beauty is there, let us find it, and show it to others. If we enjoy those things which are really beautiful, we shall find them everywhere, and if we try, we ourselves shall be able to do something which will add, in some small way, to the beauty of the world in which we live.

A Bowl in Charcoal Mass.

The bowl from which this sketch was made is of common earthenware, not unlike the clay used in making flower-pots or tiles. Although this material is neither costly nor rare, articles made from it are beautiful, if they are pleasing in shape and proportion, tasteful in coloring, and well adapted to their uses.

This little bowl was probably meant to hold short-stemmed flowers. Notice that it is low and broad, with a wide mouth or top. It will hold plenty of water for its purpose and will not easily be upset. The inner curve near the top suggests a vase or flower holder. A bowl designed for holding liquids or liquid food would probably be without this curve in its outline.

The simple coloring of the bowl has also been carefully planned. It is not by accident that the glaze on the inside is in darker value than the outside color. This contrast of light and dark is one of the elements of beauty. Look for it in things about you, and try to show its effect in sketches that you make.

Choose a bowl of simple form showing light and dark contrasts. Place it at some distance from you, so that you can see a little way into it. Draw the bowl in charcoal mass, using the flat side of a short piece of charcoal or crayon.

A Wash-Drawing of the Bowl.

The drawing on this page, the one on the page before this, and the two on pages [48] and [49], are all pictures of the same bowl. They do not look alike, because they are done with different materials, or, as we sometimes say, with different mediums. It is well for us to know how to draw with charcoal, brush and ink, pencil, crayons, and water-color, so that we can choose the medium or material that seems best suited to the particular object which we may wish to represent. A good workman understands the use of many tools.

Drawings that are made with a brush and water mixed with ink or color are sometimes called wash-drawings. In such work, light and dark effects are shown, rather than actual color. Wash-drawings differ in character from drawings made with pencil, charcoal, or crayons. You can easily tell which sketches of the bowl were made with a wet medium and which with a dry medium.

In the sketch on this page do you see that there are two values shown on the inside of the bowl? Although the inner glaze was everywhere the same color, the deep shadows in the bowl give the effect of a darker value.

Make a wash-drawing of the bowl you studied in charcoal mass. Do not draw its outline first. Wash in the shape of the top, and then the mass for the front or outer surface. Notice the use made of the white line in suggesting the edge.

The Bowl in Outline.

You know that the true shape of the top of this bowl is a circle. But when the bowl is placed on a table in front of you, its top appears narrower from front to back than it does from left to right. The shape that you have often drawn to show this appearance is called an ellipse. In a circle, all diameters are equal. In an ellipse, one diameter is always longer than the other.

Some ellipses are more beautiful in their proportions than others. If the bowl had been placed in a position where the width of the ellipse looked twice as great from front to back as it is shown here, the sketch would be less pleasing. Generally, a narrow ellipse is more beautiful than a wide one, and in arranging objects like the bowl for studies, we should be careful to place them so that the ellipses do not appear too wide from front to back. The beauty of the proportions of an ellipse has much to do with the beauty of the whole drawing.

Make an outline drawing from a bowl, carefully studying its shape, and the proportions of the ellipse seen at the top. Sketch the ellipse first, beginning at the middle of the front edge, and drawing the shape with one stroke of the pencil. Try to draw the sides of the bowl just alike. Place a table-line in the proper place. A table-line suggests a surface on which an object may rest.

The Bowl in Color.

Artists and other people who draw and paint often speak of objects such as you have lately been studying as "still life."

"Still life" means objects without life, like most of those studied in this chapter, although fruits and flowers are also frequently included. Mounted birds and insects or other animal forms from which life has gone are also classed as still life. It would be correct to speak of the drawing on this page as a study of still life. The group on [page 50], the familiar objects shown on [page 51], and the lanterns on [page 54] are all examples of the kind of objects that are included under the head of still life.

The little bowl appears again, now, perhaps, in its most attractive way. It is always a delight for us to see a beautiful bit of color. In studying the sketch, you can see how freely and simply the brush has done its work, showing the fresh, clear color of the bowl, the darker value of the inner lining, and the gray-violet shadow cast upon the table.

Make a water-color painting of a simple piece of still life, choosing a color not too brilliant. Make the entire drawing with the brush, trying not to "work" your colors until the life and freshness are lost.

A Group of Still Life.

Here are two common articles that might be found in any kitchen. The dish is a sort of earthenware kettle, and shows that it was designed for cooking purposes. It is provided with short legs and a handle or bail. The legs serve as supports for the kettle, and keep its rounding surface from rocking, while the handle is useful in lifting the kettle and its contents from the fire.

The kettle is simple in form, of pleasing proportions, and shows a good contrast of light and dark values. As you study the sketch, notice the drawing of the rim. Is it of the same thickness at every point? Study the appearance of rims in different bowls, and find out where they appear thickest.

The beet is decidedly darker in value. It is less regular in shape, and its surface differs in quality from the hard, smooth surface of the kettle.

Choose for a group two common objects of household use, that seem to belong together. In your group you should have something large and something small; something tall and something short; something light and something dark; something near and something far.

Sketch your group lightly in outline, and finish in charcoal mass.

A Growing Plant.

Hyacinths and tulips grow easily indoors, and their bright blossoms fill the florists' windows just at the time when we are beginning to grow tired of winter and to look forward to the coming of spring. You can plant bulbs so that they will grow and blossom in the school-room. There is nothing more beautiful for a window decoration than a row of tulips, hyacinths, or daffodils.

A growing plant of this kind is a fine study in still life. We enjoy looking at it, and we become much interested in trying to express its beauty. We are beginning to understand some of the elements or laws of beauty.

Let us study the drawing on this page. We have found that a group of still life, a spray of plant growth, or a landscape should show variety in shapes, in sizes of shapes, and in light and dark, or values. Does the hyacinth show these contrasts? Notice the shape of the mass of bloom, as differing from the shapes of the long, slender leaves, the stem, and the flower-pot. You will also find large shapes and small in different parts of the sketch. The flower-pot and the mass of bloom are large in proportion to the leaves and stem. Contrast and variety in color you can easily see.

Make a drawing with colored crayons or with water-colors from a growing plant, in bloom. Select one that shows simple growth, few leaves, and a bright mass of color in the blossom.

The Plant in Values.

It is often well to paint in grays a study that you have painted in color. On [page 9] is a picture in values of the sunset scene on page 8. While we cannot express the actual color of objects with anything but color, we can show the light and dark effect of color with a gray medium, such as pencil or charcoal, ink or charcoal-gray water-color.

In using a gray medium, we must try to keep our contrasts as well marked as though we were using the actual color itself. Suppose in this wash-drawing of the hyacinth, the flower, the leaves, and the flower-pot had all been of the same value. Can you not imagine how much such a picture would lose in interest? The difference in values, in the picture on this page, suggests to us the difference in color seen in the plant. If you look again at the drawing of the hyacinth on [page 52], you will see that the darkest colors in it are the red-violet of the blossom and the red-gray of the flower-pot. These are represented in the wash-drawing by dark gray. The gray-green of the leaves is shown in a lighter gray value.

In washing in the flower-pot, the flange, together with the ellipse for the top, should be drawn first. Then the base can be added, in a value which is deepened a little directly under the flange.

Select a plant in bloom, from which to make a wash-drawing. A tulip or a daffodil would make a good study. Study its growth, the shapes and sizes of its different parts, the values of its blossom, leaves, and stems, and of the jar in which it grows. Show how beautiful a picture of a plant and its bright flower may be made, without the use of color.

The Accented Line.

Have you ever heard any one read aloud in an even tone of voice, without changing the pitch or giving what is called expression to the story? You soon grow tired of listening to such reading even though the words are distinctly spoken. The same thing read with the right accent and inflection will hold your attention. You will enjoy and remember what is well read, because more truth and beauty are brought out by beautiful expression.

It is so in our drawing. We can make pictures of objects in a way that will give the facts of their forms and proportions, and still will not show the real beauty and character of those objects. Compare the two sketches of the barrel at the top of this page. Sketch B gives the facts of the barrel as well as Sketch A. But who would care for a picture that expressed so little of real interest? In Sketch A you feel the roundness or width of the barrel from back to front, and the quality of its rough and splintered surface. The line that is used to express all this is called an accented line. Such a line is varied in strength, being deepened in some places to express certain accents of form or color, and lightened in others. Sometimes it is broken off altogether, the eye seeming to continue the outline. It differs from the even, uniform line used in Sketch B just as the even, monotonous voice in reading differs from the voice that is full of expression and feeling.

Select a basket, or a wooden box of somewhat rough surface, and make an outline sketch, using the accented line.

Japanese Lanterns in Values.

The wash-drawings on this page show some Japanese lanterns that are beautiful in their light and dark quality, as well as in their color. They are fine studies in values. The lantern on the left was red, with violet spots; the light one just behind was yellow, with blue and red spots; and the right lantern was a soft dark green at the top, blending to light green at the bottom. The dark bands and the wooden hangers provide sharp contrasts in values, and give character and accent to the picture.

Choose two or three lanterns of contrasting colors, sizes, and shapes. Arrange them on a cord, hung across the corner of the room. It does not matter whether they hang above or below the level of your eyes. Paint them in values of ink or charcoal-gray.

Selecting with a Finder an Interesting Arrangement of Shapes.

You will remember that you used a finder upon certain sketches, in order to select parts that seemed more interesting than others. Any drawing looks much better if the space around it is carefully planned and adapted to the shapes shown in the drawing. This is the reason we use a finder on a sketch like that on [page 55]. Although the lantern on the right is well drawn and is a pleasing part of the whole sketch, it seems to have received added beauty in the left sketch on this page. It has been taken away from other interests, and placed within an enclosure which is well adapted to its shape, size, and color. The gray oblong at the bottom brings the eye to a part of the picture, not so important as the lantern. This oblong would be a good place for the initials or name of the artist, which should be as thoughtfully placed as any other part of the sketch.

See what a different enclosure is used in the second selection. The two lanterns make a large dark mass which needs more space. The dark name-place on the right is placed just where it is most needed.

Use a finder on the sketch of lanterns you made. Find a beautiful arrangement of shapes, adjusting the finder until you have found the enclosure and the shapes that suit you best. Cut out your selection and mount it neatly.

Home Exercises.

  1. Make an outline drawing of an empty flower-pot, standing upright. Carefully study the rim, and show where it appears thickest.
  2. Draw in outline a plain glass dish, with three apples in it.
  3. Make a wash-drawing of any cooking-bowl which shows light and dark values.
  4. Find at home any one of the objects pictured on [page 51]. Group some other suitable object with it, and make a sketch in charcoal, showing light and dark effects.
  5. Find five drawings in this book in which the accented line is used.
  6. Make a large outline drawing of a boy's straw hat. Show the use of the accented line.