A FOGGY NIGHT.
Drawing on paper in charcoal-grey, lights put in with Chinese white.
Medium grain.
Indian ink is capable of producing the greatest range of tone from light to dark, and successive washes with it are quite indelible. But it may be said at once that this great range is not necessary—nay, is not advisable in drawing for half-tone reproduction. In view of the unavoidable defects of the half-tone processes which tend to flatten out the picture, artists should not attempt many and delicate gradations. Half a dozen tones from black to white will generally suffice. Any attempt to secure the thousand-and-one gradations of a photograph will be at once needless and harmful.
Pure transparent water-colour washes do not give such good effects in reproduction as work in body-colour. Chinese white mixed with lampblack comes beautifully. Charcoal-grey, of recent introduction, is not so well adapted to the admixture of body-colour. Altogether, charcoal-grey, although a very admirable colour, is a difficult material unless you know exactly at starting a drawing what you intend to do. The illustration, [Victoria Embankment: a Foggy Night], was made in it on rough paper. The nature of the subject rendered the execution of the drawing easy, but in a drawing which runs the whole gamut of tone, its unstable qualities forbid its use by the novice.
13 × 10. CORFE RAILWAY STATION.
Drawing upon common rough scribbling paper in Indian ink,
washes reinforced by pencil lines. Fine grain.