PENCIL SKETCH. By John Everett Millais. This is not a careful study, but shows an artist’s method of “placing” objects. The right-hand figure is evidently that of a minister, and the artist at first intended to have his coat fall over his left thigh but afterwards changed it. The gray lines which thus place the skirt of the coat are those referred to in Chapter V. In the left-hand figure the head was drawn first and the hat added. It is interesting to note how low upon the head the hat rests. The mistake of the beginner is usually to put a hat too high on the skull. (Or perhaps the artist’s first intention was to draw a derby hat, which was afterwards changed to a high hat.)
{46} out to be partly shaded, we have introduced in these first chapters this question of modeling and local color. We have pointed out (Chapter II) that Engström sometimes uses pure outline, sometimes outline and silhouette, and sometimes outline, silhouette and shading. His “Fallström,” given with this chapter, is without silhouette effect, but is in outline, shading and local color. The medal referred to is a piece of pure outline. Ordinarily, when an artist draws a thing of this kind—a button, a policeman’s badge, etc.—he makes the lower line a little heavier than the rest so as to suggest the shadow the object throws upon the coat; but Engström has omitted this. In the nose, however, we have not pure outline, but a distinct broadening of the line under the nose giving the same suggestion of its protruding and of its throwing a shadow as does Crispi’s mustache in Luque’s drawing. In the hat, moreover, we have both modeling—very good modeling, too,—and local color.
You should be reminded that Engström is a caricaturist, and takes liberties with the art of drawing as well as with his subjects. The example we gave in Chapter I, his own portrait, was a perfectly consistent drawing, all pure outline; so was the “Hedin” (Chapter II), because silhouette goes perfectly well with outline. But to model a hat as fully as in this “Fallström” drawing, so that under its rim is a shadow, and yet not have it throw a suggestion of a shadow upon the man’s head, is most inconsistent drawing—permitted the caricaturist only. If you were making such a study from nature you would surely see a thrown shadow on the head and you should put it in. {47}
While I say you should not employ shading and local color to any great extent in your early work, yet you may study the theory of it so as to use it sparingly, and that study is best pursued by putting on a table a group of objects of different colors and textures; put a white box beside a brown book, an ink bottle beside a glass, a teacup beside a brown stone jug, and draw each object in relation to the others. Make your ink bottle blacker than your brown jug, but note that both have distinct high-lights upon them. The white box will probably not have a high-light upon it, but one side of it may be all light, while the corresponding side of the brown book will be darkish, though lighter than its side in shadow. (We suppose that you place your table near a window so that the light from it falls on one side of the objects, the other side being in shadow; this is the best arrangement for objects studied for their light and shade. Do not have light come from other windows.) You, therefore, in your drawing, have white paper to represent the light side of the box, but you put on a slight tint to represent the light side of the brown book. The ink bottle you will treat very much like Luque’s helmet; black as it is there will be streaks of white upon it—sometimes high-lights, and sometimes reflection of the window as seen in a mirror. If the cover of the box, because it projects a little, throws a line of shadow upon the side of the box, you will instantly recognize that this is the same kind of a thrown shadow as that which Luque put under Crispi’s mustache and Engström put under Fallström’s nose. Some study of this sort will soon train your eye to see the reason of spots of light and dark in artists’ drawings. {48}
One of the points we admire in an expert’s drawing is the use he makes of black spots. The Japanese have rules of composition, governing this distribution of spots, which they follow, balancing a black here with another there in an admirable manner. In our chapter on wood engraving we shall give some specimens of well distributed blacks. In our tailpiece by Grasset you will notice how on the right-hand side five petals and two buds balance a tri-parted leaf on the opposite side. One of the problems for the designer of printers’ devices is to balance them properly. It is much easier to copy a spray from nature and fill it in with black ink than it is to make that spray balance so that when placed at the end of a chapter or used to divide paragraphs it will balance as perfectly as the letter V or A. It is needless to note that every printer realizes that paragraphs might be separated by the letter I or A or V, but not properly by the letter B or D or E.
TYPOGRAPHICAL ORNAMENT. Designed by Eugene Grasset.
CHAPTER V.
HOW TO BEGIN A DRAWING — EDUCATION OF THE EYE THE FIRST THING — MANTELSHELF SEEN FRONT VIEW — SIDE VIEW BUT EXACTLY ON A LEVEL WITH THE EYE — TIPPING DOWNWARD IF ABOVE THE EYE — UPWARD IF BELOW THE EYE — PLACE THE BIG PROPORTIONS OF OBJECTS BEFORE ATTEMPTING DETAIL — THIS SHOULD SHOW PROPORTION AND DIRECTION — SEPARATE COMPLEX SUBJECTS INTO ELEMENTS — MEANING OF ELEMENTS — EVERY OBJECT HAS ITS AXIS — BEGINNING OF EVERY FIGURE SHOULD ALWAYS SHOW ITS ACTION — GENERAL PRACTICE TO PLACE ALL THE OBJECTS IN A PICTURE WITH PENCIL LINES FIRST — SOME EXAMPLES FROM MUNKACSY.