Drawing

“ 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. ”

“ They talk to me about technique, and drawing, and all the rest of it, none of which, I will admit, I know a mortal thing about; but all I answer is that I'm going from the point of view of the man who doesn't know how the drawing is made, but who does know how it looks when it's finished. The people of today look at nearly everything for it's merely superficial aspect; and the finer people look to our artists to display taste in clothing their pictorial creatures. ”

“ I defy any man to cut cleaner strokes than I do, or rougher, when I please; and assert, that he who thinks he can engrave or paint either, without being a master of drawing, is a fool. Painting is drawing on canvas, and engraving is drawing on copper, and nothing else. Drawing is execution and nothing else; and he who draws best must be the best artist. ”

“ Note that this drawing is as characteristic of the brush-work as of the drawing which is under it. Observe that the handling of the whole school, from the least to the greatest, is founded on a similar and perfect craftsmanship,—the same use of materials; the same deliberateness; the same simple yet ample palette; the same use of solid color candidly expressing the planes of modelling, freely following the lines of structure; the absence of affectation or invention of individual means. Whatever the individuality of the artist, it rests on something else than difference of technique. ”

“ Do not, therefore, think your drawing must be weak because you have a finely pointed pen in your hand. Till you can draw with that, you can draw with nothing; when you can draw with that, you can draw with a log of wood charred at the end. True boldness and power are only to be gained by care. Even in fencing and dancing, all ultimate ease depends on early precision in the commencement; much more in singing or drawing.
47. Now I do not want you to copy my sketch in Fig. 5, but to copy the stone before you in the way that my sketch is done. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ There is a perfection in the drawing that is remarkable, and the coloring is exquisite, the various shades and tints blending with a nicety that makes one almost feel that they were done by artists with brush and paint. ”

“ Now a picture is a thing of paint upon a flat surface, and a drawing is a matter of certain marks upon a paper, and how to translate the intricacies of a visual or imagined impression to the prosaic terms of masses of coloured pigment or lines and tones is the business with which our technique is concerned. The ease, therefore, with which a painter will be able to remember an impression in a form from which he can work, will depend upon his power to analyse vision in this technical sense. ”

“ The child's crude drawing shares the primitive youth of the first hieroglyphics; but a little reading, a few lessons from some modern master, a little time in the old world's galleries set the lad forward a thousand years and more, make his drawing as old as art itself. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This is why I would strongly urge all who wish to enrich their embroideries with the human figure to practise drawing first. I would further suggest that the drawing should be chiefly from the antique, and the study altogether more with regard to typical than individual forms, as this training is not for the painting of ‘pictures,’ but for the sake of knowing what are the elements of human beauty and how they ought to be applied or modified. Neither am I including the study of design, which, as I have before remarked, is a study in itself. ”

“ Bad proportions and gross errors in drawing are nothing to him provided he gets a smooth, uniform surface. Like the old-fashioned provincial drawing-master, who taught oils, water-colors, and Poonah painting, smoothness and finish are with him synonymous terms. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This does not seem to give much chance to either teacher or student of drawing! Nevertheless, as one who has examined the results of such drawing, a certain power of simple definition of form in an abstract way appears to be acquired,—the capacity, varying a good deal, to give in simple bold chalk outline the salient characteristics of some common object, or living form, such as a piece of pottery, a flower, a bird, a fish. Even regarded merely as an aid to the comprehension of an object or subject, drawing is obviously of the greatest practical use. ”

“ It may be remarked that they only draw well who draw intelligently; aptness in this, as in many other virtues, is a matter of slow growth, “here a line and there a line”—it’s the proper direction, not the rate of progress, that counts in the end.
There are several methods of drawing—1, Free-hand; 2, Instrumental; 3, Geometrical; 4. Perspective. In the first the work, also termed sketching, is executed by pencil, pen, crayon, or even paint-brush; in the second the result is attained by the use of rule, tee-square, drawing pen, etc. ”

“ I have presumed throughout these pages that I may be addressing many to whom the idea of drawing in pen and ink (or other material) for [68] reproduction, is entirely a new one; hence it will be necessary to examine the pen strokes which go to make up a complete drawing. Let it be well understood that many things are possible to the accomplished artist which must not be attempted by the beginner; later on we may learn, from our own experience, little freaks and tricks of our own, but we must first of all content ourselves with simple conscientious work. ”

“ The drawing of a subject is carefully done with a soft pencil and in a fine light line, so that it will not show in the picture after the color is applied. Drawing is as important in his work as color and value. ”

“ In passing from one object to the other the eye feels something of the same kind of pleasure that the ear takes in the rhythm of verse, so that one’s gaze travels over the drawing not vagrantly and with effort, but gladly, and to the spectator all this visible melody and delight seem like the unconscious expression of the secret joy with which the artist’s mind played round the scene, an echo of the mysterious music of his happy memories. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In looking at a fine drawing, say of a strong man, we seem to identify ourselves with it and feel a thrill of its strength in 33our own bodies, prompting us to set our teeth, stiffen our frame, and exclaim "That's fine." Or, when looking at the drawing of a beautiful woman, we are softened by its charm and feel in ourselves something of its sweetness as we exclaim, "How beautiful." The measure of the feeling in either case will be the extent to which the artist has identified himself with the subject when making the drawing, and has been impelled to select the expressive elements in the forms. ”

“ Having passed from the antique school, to that in which you draw after the living figure, still adhere to that scrupulous exactness of drawing with which you first set out; marking with precision the divisions of the figure. After you have made yourselves acquainted with the drawing of the living figure, you must then begin to enlarge your lines, and to give softness and breadth, to direct your attention to what constitutes style and character, and to discriminate these from what constitutes manner. ”

“ A good artist habitually sees masses, not edges, and can in every case make his drawing more expressive (with any given quantity of work) by rapid shade than by contours; so that all good work whatever is more or less touched with shade, and more or less interrupted as outline. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We cannot complete our chapter without mentioning that the styles of drawing we have suggested by no means exhaust the different methods at your disposal. While it is well to confine yourself to outline, or outline and solid black, or outline and slight shading, yet you may experiment in many more complicated methods, as seen in the Monet, and the Ringel d’Illzach, for even if you do not use these methods for illustrations they help you to observe the capital lights and darks in nature. ”

“ The drawing is perfect, giving the animal to the life. Still, no matter how far away the artist was standing, there are the same marvelously painted tufts of wool, showing almost the individual fibres. ”

“ Most modern drawing is a mixture of both these points of view, but they should be studied separately if confusion is to be avoided. If 49the student neglects line drawing, his work will lack the expressive significance of form that only a feeling for lines seems to have the secret of conveying; while, if he neglects mass drawing, he will be poorly equipped when he comes to express form with a brush full of paint to work with. ”

“ Now, while in wash drawings, crayon, or pencil sketches, "scrape" boards, and the like, there must be some amount of instinctive artistic ability, not only to guide the hand in execution but to govern taste, idea, and selection; yet in simple line drawing with the pen, without any art knowledge or technical ability, it may be possible to produce a perfectly reproducible drawing, fulfilling in every way the essential duty of an illustration. ”

“ That represents a certain style of drawing or painting, a conventional kind of art. But, if we are honestly trying to draw light and shade, if we are drawing varied tones, painting not merely flat washes of colour, then we cannot ignore the truth. ”

“ The drawing is full of details, such as the workbox, scissors, thimble, primroses, and anemones in the bowl, the china in the cupboard, and the coloured engraving on the wall, which, as we have seen in the case of other painters who have practised it, opens up in fuller maturity a power of painting which is never possible to those who have neglected such an education. ”

“ Look at those nearest to you . . . and draw their shapes delicately. Hold your pencil lightly, give a gentle, feather touch, and, as feathers are bunched together, and some will be in shadow, put in the shadows lightly, but sharply. Then pause and look at your drawing.
Have you 'handled' the drawing of the wood and the feathers differently? Does the leather look more substantial than the feathers?
The work is not easy, but practice will soon give a surer touch. You are playing a scale with your pencil as one plays a scale on a piano. ”