The student may, by dint of practice, acquire a facility for this merely mechanical style of imitation or copying; but, unless he is well grounded in fundamental principles, his operations will be vague and uncertain. It may be considered true that the better we are acquainted with the first principles of an art, its basis or foundation, so much more intimately conversant shall we be with all the intricacies of its diversified practice, and the less easily damped by its real or apparent difficulties. Students too frequently expend much time almost entirely in vain, from want of attention to this truth, trite and commonplace as it may be deemed. In acquiring the practice of this art, they are too eager to pass from the simple rules, the importance of which they think lightly of. A sure and well-laid foundation will not only give increased security to the building, but will enable the workmen to proceed with confidence to the proper carrying out of the design in its entirety; on the contrary, an ill-laid foundation only engenders distrust, and may cause total failure. We are the more inclined to offer these remarks, being aware that students at the commencement of a course of tuition are apt, in their eagerness to be able to "copy" a drawing with facility, to overlook the importance of the practice which alone enables them satisfactorily to do so. It is the wisest course of procedure to master the details of an art before proceeding to an acquaintance with its complicated examples.
We would, then, advise students to pay particular attention to the instructions in their ENTIRETY which we place before them; if they be truly anxious to acquire a speedy yet accurate knowledge of the art, they will assuredly find their account in doing so. Instead of vaguely wandering from example to example, as would be the case by following the converse of our plan, yet copying they know not how or why, they will be taught to draw all their combinations from simple rules and examples, we hope as simply stated; and thus will proceed, slowly it may be, but all the more surely, from easy to complicated figures, drawing the one as readily as the other, and this because they will see all their details, difficult to the uninitiated, but to them a combination of simple lines as "familiar as household words."
LESSON I.
OUTLINE SKETCHING.
Before the apparent forms of objects can be delineated, it is absolutely necessary that the hand shall be able to follow the dictation of the eye; that is, the pupil must, by certain practice, be capable of forming the lines which constitute the outlines and other parts of the objects to be drawn; just as, before being able to write or copy written language, the hand must be taught to follow with ease and accuracy the forms which constitute the letters; so in drawing, the hand must be tutored to draw at once and unswervingly the form presented to the eye. Thus the handling of the pencil, the practice to enable the hand to draw without hesitation or uncertainty, and the accurate rapidity essential in an expert draughtsman, may be considered as part of the alphabet of the art of free pencil sketching. Nothing looks worse in a sketch than the evidences of an uncertainty in putting in the lines; just as if the hand was not to be trusted, or at least depended upon, in the formation of the parts dictated by the eye. The eye may take an accurate perception of the object to be drawn, yet its formation may be characterized by an indecision and shakiness (to use a common but apt enough expression), which, to the initiated, is painfully apparent. In beginning, then, to acquire a ready facility in free sketching, in which the hand and eye are the sole guides, the pupil should consider it well-spent time to acquire by long practice an ease and freedom in handling the pencil, chalk, or crayon with which he makes his essay.
Fig. 1.
The first lessons may be performed with a piece of pointed chalk on a large blackboard; some of our celebrated artists have not in their early days disdained the use of more primitive implements, as a piece of burnt stick and a whitewashed wall or barn door. The larger the surface on which the lessons are drawn, the better, consistent, of course, with convenience. If a blackboard cannot be obtained, a large slate should be used. Until the pupil has acquired a facility for copying simple forms, he should not use paper and pencil; as, in the event of drawing in a line wrong, it is much better at once to begin a new attempt, than try to improve the first by rubbing out the faulty parts and piecing the lines up. As the pupil must necessarily expect to make many blunders at first starting, it will save paper if he will use a board or slate, from which the erroneous lines can be at once taken out, a damp sponge being used for this purpose. By this plan any number of lines may be drawn.