A SUSSEX LANE.
Crayon drawing on Michallet paper, wrong side of paper used. (Original 9 x 4½.)
Very few have successfully drawn from life in pen and ink. Some few well-known caricaturists and figure draughtsmen do so, and attain success purely through their splendid dash and spirit, but such things are forbidden the average man with whom the pen drawing is a matter of delicate care. But there seems no reason why the lithographic crayon on rough paper should not be thus utilised, and slight "touchings-up" added afterwards. In this way we might often have ready for immediate reproduction a sketch containing some of that spontaneous feeling which is so noticeable when glancing through the pages of an artist's sketch-book.
I have noticed in some a very false idea existing with regard to draughting in a picture with pencil before using the pen and ink. Now I do not hesitate to say that the careful sketching in of the subject in pencil is essential to all except the genius, and I am not writing for the genius, who knows more than I can tell him and can dispense with what he does not know. There is nothing to be ashamed of in drawing first in pencil; one might perhaps be able to draw in quite as correctly with the pen, but the advantage of a pencil outline as a guide is that it gives more time and leisure thought for carefully considering the pen work before putting it in. By this course there is less danger of confused hesitating lines. From the first let the ink lines be clear, distinct, and black; no "messing about," to quote Mr. Blackburn's expressive phrase; be decided as to the sort of shading you are going to put in a certain place and put it there, once for all, and don't touch it again. Avoid, by constant self-restraint, over-elaboration or too much laboured detail; let each part of the drawing be finished from the first, and do not return to it and work on it over and over again. And the first step to ensuring this precision will be by carefully pencilling everything, indicating only where shading is to come. When the pen and ink drawing is completed, carefully erase the pencil marks with bread crumbs; do not use indiarubber, which will be sure to abrade the surface, and probably break the continuity of the ink lines.
As we become more conversant with the possibilities of the zinco process, an intimacy which can only be brought by an experience built up of experiments and failures, we shall find it possible to sometimes leave in certain of the pencilling (allowing, of course, for their coming up as black as ink), but for the beginner such a practice is not recommended, as it is nearly sure to end in disappointment.
There are many interesting modifications of recognised means which are possible to the experienced—especially the production of what may be termed "mixed drawings," either for reproduction in half-tone or line, drawings in which in order to produce less ordinary effects, wash, pen, and pencil are employed combinedly; but, by the time my gentle reader has reached a stage when he may advisedly attempt such excursions from the orthodox path, he will have passed beyond the sphere of this book and will be entitled to that liberty which art permits to its practitioners.
In the meantime let me ask the student to repress for a time his more lofty aspirations, and content himself with patiently learning to produce—not a charming sketch, a delightful drawing, but—a drawing in which there is as much of artistic or pictorial merit as is compatible with the requirements of the process of reproduction. If you are drawing professedly for reproduction, no blame can attach to you if you "bear in mind during the production of your drawing the necessity of its making a good block, with as little sacrifice of artistic quality as may be."