The Crown of Wild Olive
perspective than he can learn in this rough way, Mr. Runciman (of 40
Accacia Road, St. John's Wood), who was my first drawing-master, and to
whom I owe many happy hours, can teach it him quickly, easily, and
rightly.
THE
ELEMENTS OF DRAWING.
LETTER I.
ON FIRST PRACTICE.
MY DEAR READER:
Whether this book is to be of use to you or not, depends wholly on your
reason for wishing to learn to draw. If you desire only to possess a
graceful accomplishment, to be able to converse in a fluent manner about
drawing, or to amuse yourself listlessly in listless hours, I cannot
help you: but if you wish to learn drawing that you may be able to set
down clearly, and usefully, records of such things as cannot be
described in words, either to assist your own memory of them, or to
convey distinct ideas of them to other people; if you wish to obtain
quicker perceptions of the beauty of the natural world, and to preserve
something like a true image of beautiful things that pass away, or which
you must yourself leave; if, also, you wish to understand the minds of
great painters, and to be able to appreciate their work sincerely,
seeing it for yourself, and loving it, not merely taking up the thoughts
of other people about it; then I _can_ help you, or, which is better,
show you how to help yourself.
Only you must understand, first of all, that these powers which indeed
are noble and desirable, cannot be got without work. It is much easier
to learn to draw well, than it is to learn to play well on any musical
instrument; but you know that it takes three or four years of practice,
giving three or four hours a day, to acquire even ordinary command over
the keys of a piano; and you must not think that a masterly command of
your pencil, and the knowledge of what may be done with it, can be
acquired without painstaking, or in a very short time. The kind of
drawing which is taught, or supposed to be taught, in our schools, in a
term or two, perhaps at the rate of an hour's practice a week, is not
drawing at all. It is only the performance of a few dexterous (not
always even that) evolutions on paper with a black-lead pencil;
profitless alike to performer and beholder, unless as a matter of
vanity, and that the smallest possible vanity. If any young person,
after being taught what is, in polite circles, called "drawing," will
try to copy the commonest piece of real _work_--suppose a lithograph on
the title-page of a new opera air, or a woodcut in the cheapest
illustrated newspaper of the day--they will find themselves entirely
beaten. And yet that common lithograph was drawn with coarse chalk, much
more difficult to manage than the pencil of which an accomplished young
lady is supposed to have command; and that woodcut was drawn in urgent
haste, and half spoiled in the cutting afterwards; and both were done by
people whom nobody thinks of as artists, or praises for their power;
both were done for daily bread, with no more artist's pride than any
simple handicraftsmen feel in the work they live by.
Do not, therefore, think that you can learn drawing, any more than a new
language, without some hard and disagreeable labour. But do not, on the
other hand, if you are ready and willing to pay this price, fear that
you may be unable to get on for want of special talent. It is indeed
true that the persons who have peculiar talent for art, draw
instinctively and get on almost without teaching; though never without
toil. It is true, also, that of inferior talent for drawing there are
many degrees; it will take one person a much longer time than another to
attain the same results, and the results thus painfully attained are
never quite so satisfactory as those got with greater ease when the
faculties are naturally adapted to the study. But I have never yet, in
the experiments I have made, met with a person who could not learn to
draw at all; and, in general, there is a satisfactory and available
power in every one to learn drawing if he wishes, just as nearly all
persons have the power of learning French, Latin, or arithmetic, in a
decent and useful degree, if their lot in life requires them to possess
such knowledge.
Supposing then that you are ready to take a certain amount of pains, and
to bear a little irksomeness and a few disappointments bravely, I can
promise you that an hour's practice a day for six months, or an hour's
practice every other day for twelve months, or, disposed in whatever way
you find convenient, some hundred and fifty hours' practice, will give
you sufficient power of drawing faithfully whatever you want to draw,
and a good judgment, up to a certain point, of other people's work: of
which hours, if you have one to spare at present, we may as well begin
at once.
EXERCISE I.
Everything that you can see, in the world around you, presents itself to
your eyes only as an arrangement of patches of different colours
variously shaded.[199] Some of these patches of colour have an
appearance of lines or texture within them, as a piece of cloth or silk
has of threads, or an animal's skin shows texture of hairs; but whether
this be the case or not, the first broad aspect of the thing is that of
a patch of some definite colour; and the first thing to be learned is,
how to produce extents of smooth colour, without texture.
This can only be done properly with a brush; but a brush, being soft at
the point, causes so much uncertainty in the touch of an unpractised
hand, that it is hardly possible to learn to draw first with it, and it
is better to take, in early practice, some instrument with a hard and
fine point, both that we may give some support to the hand, and that by
working over the subject with so delicate a point, the attention may be
properly directed to all the most minute parts of it. Even the best
artists need occasionally to study subjects with a pointed instrument,
in order thus to discipline their attention: and a beginner must be
content to do so for a considerable period.
Also, observe that before we trouble ourselves about differences of
colour, we must be able to lay on _one_ colour properly, in whatever
gradations of depth and whatever shapes we want. We will try, therefore,
first to lay on tints or patches of _grey_, of whatever depth we want,
with a pointed instrument. Take any finely-pointed steel pen (one of
Gillott's lithographic crow-quills is best), and a piece of quite
smooth, but not shining, note-paper, cream-laid, and get some ink that
has stood already some time in the inkstand, so as to be quite black,
and as thick as it can be without clogging the pen. Take a rule, and
draw four straight lines, so as to enclose a square or nearly a square,
about as large as _a_, Fig. 1. I say nearly a square, because it does
not in the least matter whether it is quite square or not, the object
being merely to get a space enclosed by straight lines.
Now, try to fill in that square space with crossed lines, so completely
and evenly that it shall look like a square patch of grey silk or cloth,
cut out and laid on the white paper, as at _b_. Cover it quickly, first
with straightish lines, in any direction you like, not troubling
yourself to draw them much closer or neater than those in the square
_a_. Let them quite dry before retouching them. (If you draw three or
four squares side by side, you may always be going on with one while the
others are drying). Then cover these lines with others in a different
direction, and let those dry; then in another direction still, and let
those dry. Always wait long enough to run no risk of blotting, and then
draw the lines as quickly as you can. Each ought to be laid on as
swiftly as the dash of the pen of a good writer; but if you try to reach
this great speed at first you will go over the edge of the square, which
is a fault in this exercise. Yet it is better to do so now and then than
to draw the lines very slowly; for if you do, the pen leaves a little
dot of ink at the end of each line, and these dots spoil your work. So
draw each line quickly, stopping always as nearly as you can at the edge
of the square. The ends of lines which go over the edge are afterwards
to be removed with the penknife, but not till you have done the whole
work, otherwise you roughen the paper, and the next line that goes over
the edge makes a blot.
When you have gone over the whole three or four times, you will find
some parts of the square look darker than other parts. Now try to make
the lighter parts as dark as the rest, so that the whole may be of equal
depth or darkness. You will find, on examining the work, that where it
looks darkest the lines are closest, or there are some much darker
lines, than elsewhere; therefore you must put in other lines, or little
scratches and dots, _between_ the lines in the paler parts; and where
there are very conspicuous dark lines, scratch them out lightly with the
penknife, for the eye must not be attracted by any line in particular.
The more carefully and delicately you fill in the little gaps and holes
the better; you will get on faster by doing two or three squares
perfectly than a great many badly. As the tint gets closer and begins to
look even, work with very little ink in your pen, so as hardly to make
any mark on the paper; and at last, where it is too dark, use the edge
of your penknife very lightly, and for some time, to wear it softly into
an even tone. You will find that the greatest difficulty consists in
getting evenness: one bit will always look darker than another bit of
your square; or there will be a granulated and sandy look over the
whole. When you find your paper quite rough and in a mess, give it up
and begin another square, but do not rest satisfied till you have done
your best with every square. The tint at last ought _at least_ to be as
close and even as that in _b_, Fig. 1. You will find, however, that it
is very difficult to get a _pale_ tint; because, naturally, the ink
lines necessary to produce a close tint at all, blacken the paper more
than you want. You must get over this difficulty not so much by leaving
the lines wide apart as by trying to draw them excessively fine, lightly
and swiftly; being very cautious in filling in; and, at last, passing
the penknife over the whole. By keeping several squares in progress at
one time, and reserving your pen for the light one just when the ink is
nearly exhausted, you may get on better. The paper ought, at last, to
look lightly and evenly toned all over, with no lines distinctly
visible.
EXERCISE II.
As this exercise in shading is very tiresome, it will be well to vary it
by proceeding with another at the same time. The power of shading
rightly depends mainly on _lightness_ of hand and _keenness_ of sight;
but there are other qualities required in drawing, dependent not merely
on lightness, but steadiness of hand; and the eye, to be perfect in its
power, must be made _accurate_ as well as keen, and not only see
shrewdly, but measure justly.
Possess yourself, therefore, of any cheap work on botany containing
_outline_ plates of leaves and flowers, it does not matter whether bad
or good: "Baxter's British Flowering Plants" is quite good enough. Copy
any of the simplest outlines, first with a soft pencil, following it, by
the eye, as nearly as you can; if it does not look right in proportions,
rub out and correct it, always by the eye, till you think it is right:
when you have got it to your mind, lay tracing-paper on the book, on
this paper trace the outline you have been copying, and apply it to your
own; and having thus ascertained the faults, correct them all patiently,
till you have got it as nearly accurate as may be. Work with a very soft