Drawing board

“ You get your student seated at his drawing-board, you set him to represent at the point of his pencil or chalk certain objects, casts, for instance, and encourage him to portray their appearance with all relief of light and shade, dwelling solely on the necessity of his attaining a certain degree of purely pictorial skill, which in itself is really of no practical use to a designer of ornament intended to be worked out in some other material such as a textile, wood, or metal. ”

“ If a drawing is to be colored or shaded with India ink the paper should be glued all around its edges to the drawing board, and then dampened evenly all over with a sponge, which will cause the paper to shrink and lay close to the surface of the drawing board. ”

“ Bottle of liquid India ink, four thumb-tacks, pen and ink eraser.
20 sheets drawing paper, 11 × 15 inches, and a drawing-board about 16 × 23 inches will also be necessary; students can usually make the board themselves for less money than it can be bought.
Note.—The purchasing of drawing tools is one of the most difficult points to settle that can present itself to a person about to buy a drawing outfit for the first time. ”

“ If you wish to draw on a larger scale, you must buy paper by the sheet, which necessitates a drawing-board, drawing-pins, and an easel. Easels are stocked in every quality, size, shape, and description, and listed in all the colourmen's catalogues. ”

“ Passing from the engine-room we enter the room assigned to drawing,—the first step in art education—where twenty-four boys are bending over the drawing-board, pencil in hand. Every school-day for three years these boys will spend an hour in this room. Each division of drawing—free-hand and mechanical—is thoroughly taught. Every graduate of the institution will be an expert draughtsman. ”

“ For large drawings paper is made in rolls of various widths, but as rolled paper is troublesome to lay flat upon the drawing board, it is recommended to the learner to obtain the sheets, which may be laid sufficiently flat by means of broad headed pins, such as shown in Figure 13, which are called thumb tacks. ”

“ Practice in chalk-work should alternate with sketching in a sketchbook and with geometrical drawing—to be hereafter described. The student should practice a short time on the board, at least once a week; large sizes are the most profitable for the representations to be made; when drawing in different directions the hand should be turned, not the paper or board; the hand should never be allowed to obstruct the sight, hence the hand and fingers should be held in a position of freedom—with fingers not nearer than 11⁄2 or 2 inches from the board. ”

“ Where such work is frequently to be done, so-called drawing boards ought to be at hand. These are wooden boards, best when made to fit into each other so that they can be enlarged to suit the work in hand. ”

“ Make a special point of the fact, which almost every boy overlooks, that the simple forms of outline are invariably the more pleasing. To the beginner design means making something unlike anything that was ever seen on the earth below or heaven above—hence the freakish, fussy forms that are usually offered. Try telling the class you are going to place an excellent form on the board then draw a well proportioned oblong and watch the expressions on their faces. Yet a well proportioned oblong with appropriate decorative form is one of the most pleasing of forms. ”

“ As the drawing always gets soiled under such circumstances, unless protected, it is prudent to place it upon a board of the exact size, with a glass over it to fit, the glass being kept in its place by a strip of paper pasted round the edge. ”

“ A very pretty shade is easily formed by cutting in thin drawing-board fine scalloped sections, which, tied together with narrow ribbon, take the form of a shade. Leaves are glued to the under side of these, and a lining of thin tissue-paper is pasted on to hold them in place. Still another is made in the same way, with doubled sections of card-board, between each pair of which is laid a steel engraving or wood-cut, or an unmounted photograph. The pictures are invisible till the lamp is lighted: then they gleam forth with something of the soft glow of a porcelain transparency. ”

“ The old proverb, “If a thing is worth doing it is worth doing well,” is perfectly true in this case.
PEN-FORMED LETTERS.
Fig. 7.
The student should obtain a drawing-board and fasten his paper down carefully before commencing to work. It will be found that a pad made of several sheets of blotting-paper placed under the writing-paper will make the writing easier. This makes a much more49 sympathetic surface to write upon than the hard drawing-board. Then the slope should be considered. It is not advisable to work with the board flat on the table. It should be raised to form a convenient slope. ”

“ The more nicely they are shaded on one side, the more distinct will be the impression of a chain. And the more rapidly they can be drawn, the more tense will be the children's interest. A few easy [Pg 170] lessons in drawing, from some public-school teacher or some text-book, will prove of inestimable value,—lessons enough to give you at least an idea of perspective, so that you can make a house or a box stand out from the board, and know which sides to shade of the inside of a door. ”

“ On the left are drawers for keeping the students’ instruments. On the right is a drawer for keeping general equipment that is used by the boys in common. Below this [87] drawer is the cabinet for holding the drawing-boards. These boards are so locked that only the board belonging to the boy with the key can be released. Such a table with a top 24′′ by 48′′ and 41′′ high will cost $30, list price. Estimate for individual equipment will be as follows:
There will also need to be cases in which to file the envelopes in which the students keep their completed drawings. ”

“ Draw the upper leaf on Plate 4 by the use of stroke No. 6, hardly touching the board for the gray tones, then adding the white tones with a stronger pressure upon the chalk.
Are we sure that we have not tried to make drawing an end rather than a means? Let us remember that there must be a motive prompting the work, an interest or experience back of the drawing which demands expression. ”

“ Drawings must be made upon pure white paper of a thickness corresponding to three-sheet Bristol board. The surface of the paper must be calendered and smooth. India ink alone must be used, so as to secure perfectly black and solid lines.
2. The size of a sheet on which a drawing is made must be exactly 10 × 15 inches. One inch from its edges a single marginal line is to be drawn, leaving the “sight” precisely 8 × 13 inches. ”

“ In the large schools, of course, all the children cannot go to the black-board. But a considerable practice in drawing large lines and simple objects on good-sized slates, in a sort of free-hand style, should precede the formation of letters and figures ”

“ If the figure be drawn with chalk on a black board before the class, it will be easy to require each pupil to draw a portion of the figure to show that he understands the application of the directions given under the figure.
The same course must be pursued with every other figure. By frequently drawing the figures the pupil will be able to answer the question, "How must you proceed in drawing this or that figure?" As, at first, perfect exactness is not required, the necessary knowledge of terms may be acquired by drawings made without instruments. ”

“ Now tack a sheet of paper under the pencil in the free end of the stick and a picture under the pencil in the jointed ends of the sticks, then trace the picture with the latter, and the other pencil will make an enlargement of the picture. By changing the position of the sticks a picture can be copied or reduced in the same way. A pantagraph can be bought for as little as 25 cents or for as much as $125.00. [41]
[41] A pantagraph can be bought of any dealer in art supplies or drawing materials.
Fig. 52. how a reflecting drawing board is made and used
How to Make a Reflecting Drawing Board. ”

“ Put two teaspoonfuls of water to the color you have rubbed down, and mix it well up with a camel's-hair brush about three quarters of an inch long.
25. Then take a piece of smooth, but not glossy, Bristol board or pasteboard; divide it, with your pencil and rule, into squares as large as those of the very largest chess-board: they need not be perfect squares, only as nearly so as you can quickly guess. Rest the pasteboard on something sloping as much as an ordinary desk ”

“ If this is impossible, the next best method is to provide large tables, slightly lower than thirty inches, and chairs where students may sit at their ease, in using their drawing boards.
As the work progresses, the tables should be raised, so that those who desire may stand up. This will enable the students to do better work, especially when the brush work is being practiced. ”

“ They were on oiled paper, pale blue, pale pink, and white; large sheets of exact drawings of exquisitely intricate machinery. He bent over them, handling pencils, rulers, small compasses, and other neat instruments of his craft with a certain and delicate touch. He had clamped the drawings to the table with drawing pins, holding 30down the curling corners, smoothing out the shine of the folds. ”

“ Place the box so that two sides can be observed, and sketch it lightly and without measuring. Roughly sketch its position, and decide whether the eye is above or below the top of the box, i.e, whether the horizon is low or high. Then draw the line of the horizon right across the paper, because both vanishing points must be on the same level—at the same horizon.
Young artists find it difficult to accept this fact. ”

“ Things apparently the most trivial are sufficient to render inaccurate or to mar the appearance of the otherwise most carefully and skilfully executed design, and as the value of a drawing depends wholly upon its accuracy and its appearance, it is obvious that such matters of detail, however trivial they may be in themselves, demand careful attention. We have, therefore, deemed it desirable to preface our remarks on Plan and Map Drawing with a brief description of the instruments and materials required, and of the mode of using them which experience has shown to be the best. ”

“ If you wish to draw a tall subject, such as a tree, a narrow building, an upright flower or figure, hold your sketch-book in an upright position. If you intend drawing a long-shaped subject, a reclining figure of a person or animal, a wide-spreading building, a stretch of low-lying ground, hold the book open at the full width of the page.
Fig. 63. The Well-head Beginners are prone to dash at a subject, and, finding they have drawn it on a smaller scale than they intended, add other details until the page is filled.
But why fill the whole page? An artist's sketch-book is a book of scraps. ”

“ And to confess the truth, there are easier tasks than obtaining clean, clear, correct geometrical and perspective diagrams, whether in pencil or in ink. And on examination days, woe be to those who are not “well up” in these absolute essentials of certificated merit. To model drawing succeeds the “figure from the flat,” “ornament from the cast,” and lastly, the “figure from the round.” Let it be remembered that each of these studies must be thoroughly mastered in its outline before the pupil is permitted to attempt its shading. ”

“ They bring into a single focus the whole science and art of mechanical drawing.
There are drawing offices where from ten to nearly one hundred people are busily employed in making new plans and sketches by the hundreds, and where thousands of completed drawings are filed for reference or for changes, as these are needed in the shop management. ”

“ Although a single arch, or even a couple of arches, might be sketched fairly correctly without such aid, a cluster of arches presents a more complicated problem, and we should feel justified in using this method of checking perspective.
Circles, we know, are exceedingly difficult to draw correctly. An artist, of course, should draw circles without resorting to mechanical means, but a beginner, on occasion, may wish to check his drawing of a circle by enclosing it in a square. ”

“ These designs, which require considerable care in the tracing, should be first drawn upon tracing-paper, or some stiff, thin paper, with a sharp-pointed lead-pencil; then, this being securely attached to a piece of thin bristol-board, or a common business-card, carefully cut the design, leaving the edges smooth and even. Particular care should be taken to cut all the useless bits of paper 133from the pattern. After a little practice, children learn to make designs for themselves, and enjoy it much more than following those given by others. ”

“ Very neat and serviceable diagrams may be produced even by children with no natural taste for drawing, but they need to be shown how to work, and perhaps to have the lines of a diagram suggested to them at first by a rough blackboard sketch, or it may not occur to them that a few simple lines will show all that is necessary better than a would-be realistic sketch of apparatus, with impossible perspective and smudgy shading. ”

“ In high school the design is to be taught by special drawing teachers who have informed themselves of the limitations of the shop methods when it comes to applying these designs. It is for the shop instructor to specify the kind of joint or joints that are to be used and the material, also the limitations as to decoration. ”

“ Border and cutting lines, spacing the views, blocking-out, dimensions, letters, final lines. Projection and relation of views. Visible and invisible edges.
Work—
Each pupil solve his problem, freehand carefully on scratch paper first, putting on dimensions. Then carefully to full scale with border and cutting lines but no lettering or dimensions, only sheet number and pupil’s name.
Rapid workers exchange problems and solve as time allows.
[111]
GRADE VIII.
(Mechanical Drawing) Lesson 2. Recitation—
The names and relative positions of the three views most used in mechanical drawing? ”