As our personages are to be clothed, it will be unnecessary to make careful nude studies. Nevertheless, it will be well to get rough outline drawings from the nude of all the figures, just to correct and verify the proportions of our personages.
Two or three of these nude studies can be made in a day. If the artist is an experienced draughtsman, there may not be much to correct on the large cartoon; but let him be ever so experienced, there is always something wrong about the attitude of figures drawn without models, and occasionally very gross mistakes are made.
I knew a very clever draughtsman in Paris who made the mistake of giving one of his figures two right hands, and he did not find it out until he began to work from nature.
In an outstretched arm, the twist of the radius and ulna makes all the difference about the position of the thumb, and if the thumb be placed on the wrong side of the hand, you immediately make a right hand of what ought to be a left, and vice versâ.
I will assume now that we have corrected the drawing of our cartoon from our small nude studies.
We are fully aware that the drawing of every figure will have to be perfected from nature, that is, the head, neck, arms, hands, and feet; but we are satisfied that the attitudes are all possible, and that there is no great fault in the proportions. Now, therefore, we may look out for models for the heads, arms, feet, etc., and work with chalk or charcoal (if it can be fixed) on the cartoon itself.
And here let me caution you against ever working from a model whom you know to be unsuitable. If, as often happens, you engage a model, and find when you have got him into position that he won’t do, pay him his sitting and send him away. It is better to lose five shillings than to lose five shillings and your morning’s work into the bargain.
At this stage of progress we ought to be draping our figures as well as drawing the heads and hands.
Whatever may be said about small easel pictures, I am quite sure that for large mural work a lay figure is indispensable. In adjusting draperies on a lay figure a good deal of ingenuity, and, above all, a good deal of patience, are necessary.
Nothing is so stupid as a lay figure, and many artists prefer studying their draperies on the living model; but the studies thus done will very seldom have the precision and finish of those done from the lay figure. They are, therefore, less suitable for large cartoon-work.