The Magician's Own Book, or, the Whole Art of Conjuring / Being a complete hand-book of parlor magic, and containing over one thousand optical, chemical, mechanical, magnetical, and magical experiments, amusing transmutations, astonishing sleights and subtleties, celebrated card deceptions, ingenious tricks with numbers, curious and entertaining puzzles, together with all the most noted tricks of modern performers.

by George Arnold; Frank Cahill

By the present paper I intend to let you into a great secret, the secret, namely, of Comic or "Funny" Drawing—a method, in fact, which is at the bottom of all humorous, or caricature sketching. Don't let any one be alarmed, and suppose that it is intended to set you quizzing and caricaturing your friends. Far from it.

Draw the oval, Fig. 34. Divide it by transverse lines into about equal portions. You have now the basis for a face. Let the central line (across) mark the position of the eyes, the line above that the top of the forehead, the one below the bottom of the nose. By Fig. 35 you will see this worked out, and have what is considered a well proportioned face.

Now oddity of feature or expression is simply the result of a deviation from this regularity; and if, as you will perceive by the other Figs., 36, 37 and 38, these lines are placed higher or lower, or out of their, strictly speaking, proper places, you have, as a necessary result of such disarrangement, oddity, or comicality, which is founded upon irregularity or incongruity in things.

I shall carry out this hint more fully, at present merely pointing out, in reference to the next two figures, how the end is attained by placing a pair of dark spectacles upon a regularly-featured face, or adding a little flesh to the lower portion of that at Fig. 39.

But not to forget the "Art" in the "Sport," let me add, that by sketching the plain oval, and remarking whereabout the lines of their features would cut it, you may, without difficulty, attempt likenesses of your friends and companions.

Now fill your slates or sketch-books with ovals, and try the effects of which the above are but indications. Your imaginations will furnish an endless variety of subjects. The omission of one eye, or its being covered by a shade, or closed while the other stares; the nose slightly on one side, the mouth a little wider than usual—these are all sources of the humorous, which, however, is far from being heightened by ugliness. Indeed, it should be borne in mind, that great distortion or hideousness, so far from contributing to humor, destroys it by raising painful images in the mind. True humor is closely allied to kindness.

Now let us take the simplest elements of the profile or side face. This is also formed upon the oval, with a slight variation. And here we must go a little more into the "Art" than at first sight the "Sport" seems to warrant. You will perceive by Fig. 41 that the oval used for profile purposes is divided as before into four about equal portions, which are appropriated in the same manner. That is to say, the central line across is for the eye, and the other two for the limit of the hair and the bottom of the nose.