Draw

“ Straight lines, symmetrical sides, perfect circles—perhaps when we are older we shall be able to attack these problems without flinching, but now, away with them and away with all excuses—let us begin.
Take a sheet of paper, or open your sketch-book; pick up a pencil. Now what shall we draw?
Some children bubble with odd fancies; men, horses, fairies, dogs come tripping to their minds ”

“ I begin, their mother calls them; my sketch-book becomes filled with tips of noses and locks of hair. I make a resolution not to go home without a whole figure, and I try for the first time to draw in mass, to draw rapidly, which is the only possible way of drawing, and which is to-day one of the chief faculties of our moderns. I put myself to draw in the winking of an eye the first group that presents itself ”

“ After the representation objectively, the re-telling of the tale might be enjoyed. The child who likes to draw might tell this story also in a number of little sketches: The Jack-in-the-box, The Window, The Boat, The Rat, The Fish, and The Fire. Or a very simple little dramatic dance and song might be invented, characterized by a single mood and a single form of motion, something like this, sung to the tune of "Here we go round the mulberry bush, etc":—
Here we come marching, soldiers tin, soldiers tin, soldiers tin. ”

“ And it is an excellent thing, when we draw an object, to take it up and examine it, whether it be leaf, feather, footstool, chair, or toys.
If we draw our toys now, toy girl, toy horse, toy tree, later we shall be able to draw real girl, real horse, and real tree; confident because we have a little knowledge to help us on our way. ”

“ Build.—Build up the hands by placing the palm of one on back of other, like laying bricks, repeating the motion with each hand alternately several times, raising them during the action.
Artist.—Sign for "draw;" using the hand as a rest and the little finger as a brush, make motion of drawing, then add "-er." Or,
(2) Using both little fingers as brushes, holding them opposite, make motion (in the air) of drawing, adding "-er." ”

“ It is, however, never too late to be just—by saying that the performance before us, in clearness, delicacy, and finish, equals, if not exceeds, every specimen yet produced in this country, or those we have seen on or from the continent. The Drawing is about the size of two pages of the Mirror, and exhibits specimens of almost every branch of the art. ”

“ The life of this one is like a drawing where the pencil has indicated by harsh and stiff lines all that the rule demands, and which could, if necessary, serve for a student to learn the elements of art. ”

“ Well, since I renounced versification—a little poem I had begun on the End of Woman—because words seemed to me so gross and cumbersome, mere paving-stones as it were, fit for labourers, I myself have had some idea of trying drawing, and perhaps engraving too. But what drawing can portray the mystery which lies beyond life, the only sphere that has any real existence and importance for us? ”

“ I should say at once that sincere graphic or naturalistic drawing, with individual character and style, is always preferable to merely lifeless, purely imitative, and tame repetition in so-called decorative work. ”

“ Don't burden a line drawing with heavy half tones and shadows; keep them light. The beauty that is the particular province of line drawing is the beauty of contours, and this is marred by heavy light and shade. Great draughtsmen use only just enough to express the form, but never to attempt the expression of tone. ”

“ Have you crowded too much into one place? Have you left a space crying aloud for some attention, though it be but a few short strokes of the pencil or brush?
Turn your drawing upside down. Look at the picture as a pattern, regardless of other interest, and try to consider it as such. Or, again, collect a number of small objects, a few vases, ornaments, shells, ribbons, books, hats, balls, gloves, candles (and candle-shades) , and, arranging those which harmonize together in groups, make swift sketches merely for the sake of arranging patterns, of practising composition. ”

“ It is the drawing—the design projected from that peculiar pictorial temperament or constitution, in which, while it may possibly be ignorant of true anatomical proportions, all things whatever, all poetry, every idea however abstract or obscure, floats up as a visible scene, or image: it is the colouring—that weaving as of just perceptible gold threads of light through the dress, the flesh, the atmosphere, in Titian's Lace-girl—the staining of the whole fabric of the thing with a new, delightful physical quality. ”

“ The reader should stand in front of the drawn curtain, reading during arrangement of stage for scenic illustration. Everything must be in readiness for prompt and silent changes from one tableau to another, that the poem may be “illustrated,” not spoiled. ”

“ Apart from these and one or two other mannerisms, nothing can be more natural than the drawing, or more spirited than the action, of all these men and animals. The most difficult and transitory movements are expressed with masterly certitude. ”

“ These black and white drawings indicate some of the dreams which come to a student of earlier masters who has a facile pen. Psychologically, they are a veritable melange—a medly of the realistic, the poetic, and the apocalyptic ”

“ Examined in detail, the drawing of the figures is childish, but viewed at a proper distance, so that the eye can range freely over it all without bringing any one point into sharp focus, the effect is extraordinary. ”

“ By the study of painting and etching and drawing merely, we could not foresee that there is also possible an art like sculpture, and by studying epic and lyric poetry we could not construct beforehand the forms of the drama. ”

“ Another kind of drawing which children seem to find for themselves is what they call making patterns. Out of this came the old-fashioned chequer drawing, now condemned as injurious to eyesight and of little value. ”

“ Good drawing does not so much interest us in things as in the drama centred in them. Thus we have actually such things as horror, passion, gentleness, and other invisible things conveyed to us in the lines of a drawing. We may indeed know genius from talent by the much more of the invisible which it transfers to visible line. ”

“ So much for the disastrous effect on batting; and to this may be added, that often for hours, sometimes for the whole of the last day, it is so obvious that a draw is inevitable that during that period nobody exerts himself, and the grandest of all games degenerates into a burlesque. ”

“ A curious world it would be if young artists were confronted with embodiments of their own drawings! Imagine the shock of meeting a gentleman in plus fours with no face but a turnip like smudge, or a lovely languishing lady with exquisite shingled head and nothing more substantial than a few slight lines indicating a body—and those quite wrong! ”

“ The man who used drawing as a means of communicating thoughts could express in a drawing the terror which a beast inspired or the delight he had derived from watching its movements. And just as the purpose of imparting information—whether by word or image—afforded a natural medium through which the art-impulse could work to its own ends, so also the purpose of propitiation afforded in dance or decoration something which might be diverted from its original object and be used with the single intention of expressing, for instance, the dancer’s mood. ”

“ She shows a great taste for drawing, which I have endeavoured to cultivate, knowing what a resource it is for those situated as she is; but owing to her weakness of vision she has not yet made much progress. Drawing, however has been of great use on my side, often enabling me to illustrate subjects I could not otherwise have conveyed to her mind. ”

“ In the drawing the scene as a whole was being laboriously invoked piecemeal, a collection of objects was being formed into a sum total; in the etching the subject as a whole is a real and living thing, guiding the artist’s hand and moulding all the details into kinship with itself. ”

“ Some artists begin in point drawing with the eyes, and some leave the eyes until the very last. Some draughtsmen are never happy until they have an eye to adjust the head round, treating it as the centre of interest and drawing the parts relatively to it. ”

“ The whole is like the drawings of children, without the observance of proportion, and without steadiness of hand. With a great deal of bombast, the tone of the dialogue, however, has something natural, nay, even familiar, and in the change of scenes we perceive a light movement, which in some degree will account for the general applause received by this immature production. ”

“ We must consider the barbarous state of the arts before his time, when skill in drawing was so little understood, that the best of the painters could not even foreshorten the foot, but every figure appeared to stand upon his toes, and what served for drapery had, from the hardness and smallness of the folds, too much the appearance of cords clinging round the body. ”

“ The connection between these branches are numerous and strong at every step. Drawing has a very intimate and important relation to the objects described in history, natural science, arithmetic, and geography; while the songs learned should express in those poetic and rhythmic forms which appeal so strongly to the feelings, many of the noblest ideas suggested by travel, scenery, history, and the experiences of home life. ”

“ To all lights, drawing reclaims [asserts] an important part of the synthetic program, and as art properly said, as the translation of the idea, an element of intellectual activity and happiness, and therefore as tool to work from the utilitarian perspective: the drawing under all its forms and in its different genres, geometric drawing and lifelike drawing, painting; junto to model, as study of the complete form, theoretically before drawing itself, and susceptible to no fewer applications. ”

“ When power is acquired over these, their combinations form Drawing, in all its picturesque varieties. It is in the power of all to attain these forms and essential parts of drawing, with the same, or more facility, than the forms of writing are acquired. ”

“ If they are vital and expressive, you have started along lines you can develop, and have some hope of doing a good drawing. If they are feeble and poor, the chances are greatly against your getting anything good built upon them. If your start has been bad, pull yourself together, turn your paper over and start afresh, trying to seize upon the big, significant lines and swings in your subject at once. ”

“ BLACKBOARD DRAWING
one of the teachers who read “The School Arts Book” from month to month doubt in the least the value of drawing in our schools, and there is no need of the slightest argument in its favor. Even in the lowest grades the teacher appreciates drawing as the natural expression of the thought and experience of the child; a spontaneous activity, having its relation to life, not a thing apart from life or an end in itself. ”

“ And likewise the savage who, wishing to illustrate his description of a strange animal he has seen, takes a piece of burnt wood and draws on the wall his idea of what it looked like, a sort of catalogue of its appearance in its details, he is not necessarily an artist. ”

“ By drawing, the eye is trained as well as the hand; the attention to the exact shape of the whole and the proportion of the parts which is requisite for the taking of an adequate sketch is converted into a habit, and becomes productive both of instruction and amusement. ”

“ So that in a line drawing in pen or pencil, in the economy of the means, and in the skill and mastery 126 by which facts of nature, character, life, action, or beauty of line and ornamental effect are rendered by the simple use of outline, or tint, or solid black, we can recognise the artist of power just as clearly as we recognize a friend's handwriting. ”

“ Another question is how far drawing, however acquired, may be regarded as a play. The finished production of the artist’s pencil is not always so, by any means, for in modern times his art requires all a man’s energies, and becomes his life calling and his means of support. Productions of dilettantes belong more to our sphere. ”

“ It is true, sketches, or such drawings as painters generally make for their works, give this pleasure of imagination to a high degree. From a slight undetermined drawing, where the ideas of the composition and character are, as I may say, only just touched upon, the imagination supplies more than the painter himself, probably, could produce; and we accordingly often find that the finished work disappoints the expectation that was raised from the sketch; and this power of the imagination is one of the causes of the great pleasure we have in viewing a collection of drawings by great painters. ”

“ This relation among the parts of a composition is what we call Beauty, and it begins to exist with the first few lines drawn. Even the student may express a little of it as he feels it, and the attempt to embody it in lines on paper will surely lead to a desire to know more fully the character and shapes of things, to seek a knowledge of drawing with enthusiasm and pleasure. ”

“ He showed me one day the manuscript of a play. My faith in my instinct for form, whether in drama or fiction, was complete, and I saw instantly that what this piece lacked was form, which means intelligibility. It had everything except intelligibility. "Look here!" I said to him, "we will write a play together, you and I. We can do something that will knock spots off——" etc., etc. We determined upon a grand drawing-room melodrama which should unite style with those qualities that make for financial success on the British stage. ”