STUDY FROM LIFE IN SILVER POINT.
(By Ernest M. Jessop.)
The silver wires may be sharpened to any point desired on a piece of very fine emery cloth. Two sizes of round and one flat point are those usually used.
As to the card or paper. This, it must be at once understood, is one of the most delicate of substances. Its surface once soiled, it is absolutely useless. No mark of any nature can be erased from it. There is no rubbing out or slurring over to be practised. If you scratch its surface with an erasing knife it alters the colour and the stylus will no longer mark on the scratched surface. The same result occurs from the contact of a hot or greasy hand or the spilling of a spot of water no matter how quickly removed.
For these reasons no silver point can be entirely drawn direct from nature. A fairly finished sketch must first be made; from this it is advisable to take a careful tracing. Through this tracing bore very small holes with a broken etching-needle or small piercer at all the salient points and at short intervals along the outline of your subject. Then lay your tracing on the silver point paper in the position you intend it to occupy, secure it by weights, and with your smallest silver point make a tiny dot through each hole on to the paper. This is the only guide you can make to help you. Now lightly indicate your drawing with fine strokes made diagonally from right to left downwards, always remembering that the silver point cannot be rubbed backwards and forwards the same as a pencil without destroying the surface of the paper. All shadows should be put in very lightly at first, as lights cannot afterwards be added, although they may be taken away where not required. To get your deeper shades you may go over the same places many times with the silver point if you continue to work downwards. Either parallel or diagonally crossed lines may be used to shade. It is as well to avoid all firm hard outlines, as silver point mainly depends for its beauty on its misty and shadowy effects.
As in all classes of art work portraits, after having been fixed from a sketch, should be finished direct from nature. Without using this method you may preserve the features of your model, but soul and character will always be wanting. For land and seascape silver point is peculiarly adapted, as some of the most delicately beautiful aerial effects may be attained by its use. For foliage also, used with a careful knowledge, it is incomparable. To look its best no silver point drawing should occupy more than one-fourth of the paper on which it is drawn, and any attempt to finish square up to a mount or frame must be studiously avoided. In fact, the edges of the drawing should imperceptibly melt away into the paper. In very fine work, such as the face of a baby or young girl, a singularly beautiful effect may be produced by finishing the features through the aid of a magnifying glass, thereby removing all traces of lines, and then in the ordinary manner and with bolder lines adding hair, figure, costume, etc.
One last word on the choice of paper. This is made with two kinds of surface, dull and slightly glazed, like the backs of playing cards. The latter I have found to give the best effect in colour. All drawings after they are completed should be exposed to the atmosphere (but not to dust) for at least a week, it taking some time for them to acquire their beautiful colouring. After the period above mentioned the colour is absolutely permanent.
In framing the edges of the paper should be hermetically sealed to the glass so as to exclude dust.
Frames are always a matter of taste. Personally I have used with the happiest effect a wide flat frame of white enamelled wood with a very narrow pale gold Louis Seize edging to enrich the opening of it. A fine silver point in a well-made frame of this kind is indeed one of those things of beauty which are joys for ever.
Ernest M. Jessop.