the materials in which the artist works are of the greatest importance in determining what qualities in the infinite complexity of nature he selects for expression. and the good draughtsman will find out the particular ones that belong to whatever medium he selects for his drawing, and be careful never to attempt more than it is capable of doing. every material he works with possesses certain vital qualities peculiar to itself, and it is his business to find out what these are and use them to the advantage of his drawing. when one is working with, say, pen and ink, the necessity for selecting only certain things is obvious enough. but when a medium with the vast capacity of oil paint is being used, the principle of its governing the nature of the work is more often lost sight of. so near can oil paint approach an actual illusion of natural appearances, that much misdirected effort has been wasted on this object, all enjoyment of the medium being subordinated to a meretricious attempt to deceive the eye. and i believe a popular idea of the art of painting is that it exists chiefly to produce this deception. no vital expression of nature can be achieved without the aid of the particular vitality possessed by the medium with which one is working. if this is lost sight of and the eye is 272tricked into thinking that it is looking at real nature, it is not a fine picture. art is not a substitute for nature, but an expression of feeling produced in the consciousness of the artist, and intimately associated with the material through which it is expressed in his work—inspired, it may be, in the first instance, by something seen, and expressed by him in painted symbols as true to nature as he can make them while keeping in tune to the emotional idea that prompted the work; but never regarded by the fine artist as anything but painted symbols nevertheless. never for one moment does he intend you to forget that it is a painted picture you are looking at, however naturalistic the treatment his theme may demand.
in the earlier history of art it was not so necessary to insist on the limitations imposed by different mediums. with their more limited knowledge of the phenomena of vision, the early masters had not the same opportunities of going astray in this respect. but now that the whole field of vision has been discovered, and that the subtlest effects of light and atmosphere are capable of being represented, it has become necessary to decide how far complete accuracy of representation will help the particular impression you may intend your picture or drawing to create. the danger is that in producing a complete illusion of representation, the particular vitality of your medium, with all the expressive power it is capable of yielding, may be lost.
perhaps the chief difference between the great masters of the past and many modern painters is the neglect of this principle. they represented nature in terms of whatever medium they worked in, and 273never overstepped this limitation. modern artists, particularly in the nineteenth century, often attempted to copy nature, the medium being subordinated to the attempt to make it look like the real thing. in the same way, the drawings of the great masters were drawings. they did not attempt anything with a point that a point was not capable of expressing. the drawings of many modern artists are full of attempts to express tone and colour effects, things entirely outside the true province of drawing. the small but infinitely important part of nature that pure drawing is capable of conveying has been neglected, and line work, until recently, went out of fashion in our schools.
there is something that makes for power in the limitations your materials impose. many artists whose work in some of the more limited mediums is fine, are utterly feeble when they attempt one with so few restrictions as oil paint. if students could only be induced to impose more restraint upon themselves when they attempt so difficult a medium as paint, it would be greatly to the advantage of their work. beginning first with monochrome in three tones, as explained in a former chapter, they might then take for figure work ivory black and venetian red. it is surprising what an amount of colour effect can be got with this simple means, and how much can be learned about the relative positions of the warm and cold colours. do not attempt the full range of tone at first, but keep the darks rather lighter and the lights darker than nature. attempt the full scale of tone only when you have acquired sufficient experience with the simpler range, and gradually add more colours as you learn to master a few. but restraints are 274not so fashionable just now as unbridled licence. art students start in with a palette full of the most amazing colours, producing results that it were better not to discuss. it is a wise man who can discover his limitations and select a medium the capacities of which just tally with his own. to discover this, it is advisable to try many, and below is a short description of the chief ones used by the draughtsman. but very little can be said about them, and very little idea of their capacities given in a written description; they must be handled by the student, and are no doubt capable of many more qualities than have yet been got out of them.
lead pencil
this well-known medium is one of the most beautiful for pure line work, and its use is an excellent training to the eye and hand in precision of observation. perhaps this is why it has not been so popular in our art schools lately, when the charms of severe discipline are not so much in favour as they should be. it is the first medium we are given to draw with, and as the handiest and most convenient is unrivalled for sketch-book use.
it is made in a large variety of degrees, from the hardest and greyest to the softest and blackest, and is too well known to need much description. it does not need fixing.
for pure line drawing nothing equals it, except silver point, and great draughtsmen, like ingres, have always loved it. it does not lend itself so readily to any form of mass drawing. although it is sometimes used for this purpose, the offensive shine that occurs if dark masses are introduced is against its use in any but very lightly shaded work.
plate lv.
from a silver-point drawing
275its charm is the extreme delicacy of its grey-black lines.
silver and gold point.
similar to lead pencil, and of even greater delicacy, is silver-point drawing. a more ancient method, it consists in drawing with a silver point on paper the surface of which has been treated with a faint wash of chinese white. without this wash the point will not make a mark.
for extreme delicacy and purity of line no medium can surpass this method. and for the expression of a beautiful line, such as a profile, nothing could be more suitable than a silver point. as a training to the eye and hand also, it is of great value, as no rubbing out of any sort is possible, and eye and hand must work together with great exactness. the discipline of silver-point drawing is to be recommended as a corrective to the picturesque vagaries of charcoal work.
a gold point, giving a warmer line, can also be used in the same way as a silver point, the paper first having been treated with chinese white.
charcoal.
two extreme points of view from which the rendering of form can be approached have been explained, and it has been suggested that students should study them both separately in the first instance, as they each have different things to teach. of the mediums that are best suited to a drawing combining both points of view, the first and most popular is charcoal.
charcoal is made in many different degrees of hardness and softness, the harder varieties being capable of quite a fine point. a chisel-shaped point is the most convenient, as it does not wear away so quickly. and if the broad side of the chisel point 276is used when a dark mass is wanted, the edge can constantly be kept sharp. with this edge a very fine line can be drawn.
charcoal works with great freedom, and answers readily when forceful expression is wanted. it is much more like painting than any other form of drawing, a wide piece of charcoal making a wide mark similar to a brush. the delicacy and lightness with which it has to be handled is also much more like the handling of a brush than any other point drawing. when rubbed with the finger, it sheds a soft grey tone over the whole work. with a piece of bread pressed by thumb and finger into a pellet, high lights can be taken out with the precision of white chalk; or rubber can be used. bread is, perhaps, the best, as it does not smudge the charcoal but lifts it readily off. when rubbed with the finger, the darks, of course, are lightened in tone. it is therefore useful to draw in the general proportions roughly and rub down in this way. you then have a middle tone over the work, with the rough drawing showing through. now proceed carefully to draw your lights with bread or rubber, and your shadows with charcoal, in much the same manner as you did in the monochrome exercises already described.
all preliminary setting out of your work on canvas is usually done with charcoal, which must of course be fixed with a spray diffuser. for large work, such as a full-length portrait, sticks of charcoal nearly an inch in diameter are made, and a long swinging line can be done without their breaking.
for drawings that are intended as things of beauty in themselves, and are not merely done as a preparatory study for a painting, charcoal is per277haps not so refined a medium as a great many others. it is too much like painting to have the particular beauties of a drawing, and too much like drawing to have the qualities of a painting. however, some beautiful things have been done with it.
it is useful in doing studies where much finish is desired, to fix the work slightly when drawn in and carried some way on. you can work over this again without continually rubbing out with your hand what you have already drawn. if necessary you can rub out with a hard piece of rubber any parts that have already been fixed, or even scrape with a pen-knife. but this is not advisable for anything but an academic study, or working drawings, as it spoils the beauty and freshness of charcoal work. studies done in this medium can also be finished with conté chalk.
there is also an artificial charcoal put up in sticks, that is very good for refined work. it has some advantages over natural charcoal, in that there are no knots and it works much more evenly. the best natural charcoal i have used is the french make known as "fusain rouget." it is made in three degrees, no. 3 being the softest, and, of course, the blackest. but some of the ordinary venetian and vine charcoals sold are good. but don't get the cheaper varieties: a bad piece of charcoal is worse than useless.
charcoal is fixed by means of a solution of white shellac dissolved in spirits of wine, blown on with a spray diffuser. this is sold by the artists' colourmen, or can be easily made by the student. it lightly deposits a thin film of shellac over the work, acting as a varnish and preventing its rubbing off.
278charcoal is not on the whole the medium an artist with a pure love of form selects, but rather that of the painter, who uses it when his brushes and paints are not handy.
red chalk (sanguine).
a delightful medium that can be used for either pure line work or a mixed method of drawing, is red chalk. this natural red earth is one of the most ancient materials for drawing. it is a lovely venetian red in colour, and works well in the natural state, if you get a good piece. it is sold by the ounce, and it is advisable to try the pieces as they vary very much, some being hard and gritty and some more soft and smooth. it is also made by messrs. conté of paris in sticks artificially prepared. these work well and are never gritty, but are not so hard as the natural chalk, and consequently wear away quickly and do not make fine lines as well.
red chalk when rubbed with the finger or a rag spreads evenly on paper, and produces a middle tone on which lights can be drawn with rubber or bread. sticks of hard, pointed rubber are everywhere sold, which, cut in a chisel shape, work beautifully on red chalk drawings. bread is also excellent when a softer light is wanted. you can continually correct and redraw in this medium by rubbing it with the finger or a rag, thus destroying the lights and shadows to a large extent, and enabling you to draw them again more carefully. for this reason red chalk is greatly to be recommended for making drawings for a picture where much fumbling may be necessary before you find what you want. unlike charcoal, it hardly needs fixing, and much more intimate study of the forms can be got into it.
279most of the drawings by the author reproduced in this book are done in this medium. for drawings intended to have a separate existence it is one of the prettiest mediums. in fact, this is the danger to the student while studying: your drawing looks so much at its best that you are apt to be satisfied too soon. but for portrait drawings there is no medium to equal it.
additional quality of dark is occasionally got by mixing a little of this red chalk in a powdered state with water and a very little gum-arabic. this can be applied with a sable brush as in water-colour painting, and makes a rich velvety dark.
it is necessary to select your paper with some care. the ordinary paper has too much size on it. this is picked up by the chalk, and will prevent its marking. a paper with little size is best, or old paper where the size has perished. i find an o.w. paper, made for printing etchings, as good as any for ordinary work. it is not perfect, but works very well. what one wants is the smoothest paper without a faced and hot-pressed surface, and it is difficult to find.
occasionally black chalk is used with the red to add strength to it. and some draughtsmen use it with the red in such a manner as to produce almost a full colour effect.
holbein, who used this medium largely, tinted the paper in most of his portrait drawings, varying the tint very much, and sometimes using zinc white as a wash, which enabled him to supplement his work with a silver-point line here and there, and also got over any difficulty the size in the paper might cause. his aim seems to have been to select the few essential things 280in a head and draw them with great finality and exactness. in many of the drawings the earlier work has been done with red or black chalk and then rubbed down and the drawing redone with either a brush and some of the chalk rubbed up with water and gum or a silver-point line of great purity, while in others he has tinted the paper with water-colour and rubbed this away to the white paper where he wanted a light, or chinese white has been used for the same purpose.
black conté and carbon pencil.
black conté is a hard black chalk made in small sticks of different degrees. it is also put up in cedar pencils. rather more gritty than red chalk or charcoal, it is a favourite medium with some, and can be used with advantage to supplement charcoal when more precision and definition are wanted. it has very much the same quality of line and so does not show as a different medium. it can be rubbed like charcoal and red chalk and will spread a tone over the paper in very much the same way.
carbon pencils are similar to conté, but smoother in working and do not rub.
white chalk.
white chalk is sometimes used on toned paper to draw the lights, the paper serving as a half tone while the shadows and outlines are drawn in black or red. in this kind of drawing the chalk should never be allowed to come in contact with the black or red chalk of the shadows, the half tone of the paper should always be between them.
for rubbed work white pastel is better than the ordinary white chalk sold for drawing, as it is not so hard. a drawing done in this method with white pastel and red chalk is reproduced on 281page 46 [transcribers note: plate iv], and one with the hard white chalk, on page 260 [transcribers note: plate liv].
this is the method commonly used for making studies of drapery, the extreme rapidity with which the position of the lights and shadows can be expressed being of great importance when so unstable a subject as an arrangement of drapery is being drawn.
lithography.
lithography as a means of artistic reproduction has suffered much in public esteem by being put to all manner of inartistic trade uses. it is really one of the most wonderful means of reproducing an artist's actual work, the result being, in most cases, so identical with the original that, seen together, if the original drawing has been done on paper, it is almost impossible to distinguish any difference. and of course, as in etching, it is the prints that are really the originals. the initial work is only done as a means of producing these.
a drawing is made on a lithographic stone, that is, a piece of limestone that has been prepared with an almost perfectly smooth surface. the chalk used is a special kind of a greasy nature, and is made in several degrees of hardness and softness. no rubbing out is possible, but lines can be scratched out with a knife, or parts made lighter by white lines being drawn by a knife over them. a great range of freedom and variety is possible in these initial drawings on stone. the chalk can be rubbed up with a little water, like a cake of water-colour, and applied with a brush. and every variety of tone can be made with the side of the chalk.
some care should be taken not to let the warm finger touch the stone, or it may make a greasy mark that will print.
282when this initial drawing is done to the artist's satisfaction, the most usual method is to treat the stone with a solution of gum-arabic and a little nitric acid. after this is dry, the gum is washed off as far as may be with water; some of the gum is left in the porous stone, but it is rejected where the greasy lines and tones of the drawing come. prints may now be obtained by rolling up the stone with an inked roller. the ink is composed of a varnish of boiled linseed oil and any of the lithographic colours to be commercially obtained.
the ink does not take on the damp gummed stone, but only where the lithographic chalk has made a greasy mark, so that a perfect facsimile of the drawing on stone is obtained, when a sheet of paper is placed on the stone and the whole put through the press.
the medium deserves to be much more popular with draughtsmen than it is, as no more perfect means of reproduction could be devised.
the lithographic stone is rather a cumbersome thing to handle, but the initial drawing can be done on paper and afterwards transferred to the stone. in the case of line work the result is practically identical, but where much tone and playing about with the chalk is indulged in, the stone is much better. lithographic papers of different textures are made for this purpose, but almost any paper will do, provided the drawing is done with the special lithographic chalk.
pen and ink.
pen and ink was a favourite means of making studies with many old masters, notably rembrandt. often heightening the effect with a wash, he conveyed marvellous suggestions with the simplest scribbles. but it is a difficult medium for the young 283student to hope to do much with in his studies, although for training the eye and hand to quick definite statement of impressions, there is much to be said for it. no hugging of half tones is possible, things must be reduced to a statement of clear darks—which would be a useful corrective to the tendency so many students have of seeing chiefly the half tones in their work.
plate lvi.
study in pen and ink and wash for tree in "the boar hunt" rubens (louvre)
photo giraudon
the kind of pen used will depend on the kind of drawing you wish to make. in steel pens there are innumerable varieties, from the fine crow-quills to the thick "j" nibs. the natural crow-quill is a much more sympathetic tool than a steel pen, although not quite so certain in its line. but more play and variety is to be got out of it, and when a free pen drawing is wanted it is preferable.
reed pens are also made, and are useful when thick lines are wanted. they sometimes have a steel spring underneath to hold the ink somewhat in the same manner as some fountain pens.
there is even a glass pen, consisting of a sharp-pointed cone of glass with grooves running down to the point. the ink is held in these grooves, and runs down and is deposited freely as the pen is used. a line of only one thickness can be drawn with it, but this can be drawn in any direction, an advantage over most other shapes.
etching.
etching is a process of reproduction that consists in drawing with a steel point on a waxed plate of copper or zinc, and then putting it in a bath of diluted nitric acid to bite in the lines. the longer the plate remains in the bath the deeper and darker the lines become, so that variety in thickness is got by stopping out with a varnish the light lines when they are sufficiently 284strong, and letting the darker ones have a longer exposure to the acid.
many wonderful and beautiful things have been done with this simple means. the printing consists in inking the plate all over and wiping off until only the lines retain any ink, when the plate is put in a press and an impression taken. or some slight amount of ink may be left on the plate in certain places where a tint is wanted, and a little may be smudged out of the lines themselves to give them a softer quality. in fact there are no end of tricks a clever etching printer will adopt to give quality to his print.
paper.
the varieties of paper on the market at the service of the artist are innumerable, and nothing need be said here except that the texture of your paper will have a considerable influence on your drawing. but try every sort of paper so as to find what suits the particular things you want to express. i make a point of buying every new paper i see, and a new paper is often a stimulant to some new quality in drawing. avoid the wood-pulp papers, as they turn dark after a time. linen rag is the only safe substance for good papers, and artists now have in the o.w. papers a large series that they can rely on being made of linen only.
it is sometimes advisable, when you are not drawing a subject that demands a clear hard line, but where more sympathetic qualities are wanted, to have a wad of several sheets of paper under the one you are working on, pinned on the drawing-board. this gives you a more sympathetic surface to work upon and improves the quality of your work. in redrawing a study with which you are not quite satisfied, it is a good plan to use a thin paper, 285pinning it over the first study so that it can be seen through. one can by this means start as it were from the point where one left off. good papers of this description are now on the market. i fancy they are called "bank-note" papers.
