DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.25606#0008
PRINCIPLES OF DRAWING.
drawing, an ability to make it can only be acquired by appli-
cation and practice.
Proceed dowly in your first attempts, ^making it your care
to secure every stroke, and rather to produce one good {ketch
than in a heedless manner to hurry over a number of bad ones.
View your original with close attention ; ponder upon the
length, the breadth, and the form os each part; their propor-
tions to one another and to the whole; the distance from one
part to the other ; which of them lie parallel, and which un-
derneath the other. In considering what parts are opposite to
each other, you may conceive or occasionally draw a perpen-
dicular line from the top to the bottom, and a strait line from
side to side, and notice what parts are marked by these lines,
and in what manner others deviate from them. This obser-
vation may be made by laying your ruler acrost the work,
and observing the parts intersered thereby.
Sketch out the general appearance of the whole in very
faint sirokes, without regarding the minute particulars and
little turns, these may be added afterwards. Review your
{ketch after it has been laid aside for seme time, comparing it
again with the original : faults may then appear which were
iinaiscovered before. This method of practice tends to make
you more persedl in any particular Iketchj and by improving
your knowledge of outlines and proportions, to enable you
for nearer imitation after other patterns.
Proportion, or the just magnitude of the several members
of a figure, with regard to one another and the whole figure,
makes one essential article in every good draught. A scheme
of the proportions of a graceful human figure is given in the
fifth lessori, taken from the measures' of antique statues,
edeemed sor the highest degrees of proportion. A knowledge
of these will be of great service to the young student, yet it
mull not be supposed, that this scheme is the standard of
measurement for all figures. For
Different attitudes make a sensible disference in the limbs
of the same body : the muscles (liift their appearances, swell-
ing one way and narrowing another, in different movements.
Thus the arm, the foot, the knee, &c. are enlarged by bend-
in cr them, and the limbs are also fore shortened.
Moreover, disferent human bodies of agreeable appear-
ances, have not the same measures and exa6t propoitions in
their features and limbs, theresore the eye musf judge of
gracefulness and proportion.
Fitness to peculiar characters should always be joined to the
idea of proportion. Brawny muscularlirnbs are exprestive of
strength, and more siender forms of agility for motion. The
legs of chairmen, and the siioulders os watermen, are enlarged
by their different occupations. Aukward as such a figure ap-
pears, yet a thoughtless country clown is fitly expresfed by a
large head, short neck, high fiioulders, flat ftomach, thick
knees and thighs, and large feet. Proportion, in these and
other insiances, are regulated by fitness to peculiar characters,
and no exact dimensions can be given of them.
THE PROPER MATERIALS FOR DRAWING. \
'IPHE materials for drawing, are black lead pencils, charcoal,
^ crayons'of black, white or red chalk, or other dry co-
lours made up into crayons ; a portcrayon, Indian ink, hair
pencils, crow-quill pens, a ruler and a pair of compasses.
A black lead pencil is mosi convenient at the beginning of
practice. Slope your pencil to a fine point: accusiom yourself
to hold it further from the point than the nib of a pen in writ-
ing ; this is necesshry to a'n easy command os hand, and to the
making your sirokes with freedom and boldness.
Charcoal os a sine smooth grain, ssit into siender pieces for
the portcrayon, is very proper for sketching, as any sirokes
made with it are easily brushed out with a feather or clean soft
rag, is you think them wrong. Having secured your outline
with charcoal, wipe it (lightly over with a seather, to make the
lines saint, then go over them with black or red lead, endea-
vouring to make them morecorredb These new sirokes, when
wrong, may be diseharged with India rubber, or the crumbs
of stale white bread. In sketching after plaster, or academy
sigures, charcoal is much used, because it is easily diseharged.
Chalk, the best sort of it, is free from grittiness and sand,
is pretty soft, and has a kind of fatness in it. Black chalk is
osten used on blue or grey paper, the colour of which serves
for good part of the (hading, and the lights are put in with
white chalk. Red chalk is used on white paper : the shacW
made in hatching with it receive a softness, by rubbing them
in gently in the broad strong parts with a Hump made of waft!
leather, and then hatching upon them again. Chalk is proper
for drawing large figures; but a little experience will teach
you, to be careful not to make false firokes with it, for they 1
are very difficult to be diseharged from the paper.
|
Crayons are any colours mixed with tobacco-pipe clay!
which, while soft, and in the consisiency of paste, is rolled ud
in pieces about the thickness of a quill, and two or three inches
in length, and then being dried, are properly called dry co-
lours. They work easiefi, and express themselves sirongesi on
paper of a rough grain, and are used on coloured paper. If.
dark, or brownish, or near the colour of whited-brown paper *
it yields a good relief to the tender parts of the work. In uting
these colours they are rubbed and wrought one into another *
in such a manner that no sirokes appear, but the colours are
mixed as if they were laid in with a brusli. Many pidlures after
the lise are painted in crayons.
V [
- Drawing with these dry colours is quick and expeditious, 1
and when the crayons are handled with judgment, they give a
delicate sostness : but the touch of a rude finger may spoil the
fine work, or a damp place mildew it.
Indian ink does not spread and run like common ink, and
the work persormed with it appears much softer. It is bought
in small cakes, arid by mixing it with water may be made to
any degree of firength, and used either with a hair pencil, or
in a pen like common ink. When the young student has made
some progress in drawing with his black lead pencil, and be-
gins to rise this ink, let him secure his outline as corredt as he
can with the black lead, then he may trace it over with a pen
or hair pencil and Indian ink, and asterwards with India rub-
ber, or the crumb of stale white bread, rub out any remaining
marks of the black lead pencil.
Shading with this ink is sometimes done by hatching with
the pen, or making firokes crosting one another; but this is as
well,-or better performed with the hair pencil. A more expe-
ditious and customary manner is wasfling or working the (hades
with the ink and hair pencils, in the same way as water colours
are used. The shades made by hatching, reserable the stroke
of engraved prints. In walking the shades, they appear like
those in mezzotinto prints, in which there is not any lines.
The ruler and compasies are useful in making geometrical
figures and in architedfure ; excepting in these instances the
ruler is never to be used, and the compasies but seldom : oc-
casionally they may be applied in nicely examining the agree-
ment of the copy with the original, but it is best to judge in’
mosi cases by the eye only.
TFIE CONDUCT OF THE TFUNTS OF LIGHTS
AND SHADOWS.
TT is the proper distribution of light and shade which gives
A the appearance of subfiarice, round or ssat siiapes, disiance,
tand relievo or projection, to whatever bodies you represent.
Draw a circle, and according’to the manner in which you
shade it, it will either receive a siat, a globular, or a concave
appearance. Fill it up with an even colour, or with a number
of lines os the same sirength, and it will resemble a body with
a round circumference and siat sides. By colouring it sirongesi:
in the middle, the edges are made to retire by the gradating
shades, and it receives a convex appearance like a globe. By
gradually weakening the shades srom the edge towards the
centre, the middle part will be made to retire, and a concave
appearance like a bason be given to it.
Those parts os an objedl which have the greatest vivacity
of colour, catch the sight iirst, and appear nearest to it. By
gradually weakening the colour, the other parts are made to
recede from the eye, and appear sarther osf.
Pure and unmixed white, either brings an object nearer, or
makes it to retire further. If the white be gradually weak-
ened, and supported by a shade, it then advances ; but unless
it be thus forced forward, it slies oss to the remotest view.
In rounding the parts of any object, the light and (hade must
be gradually softened into one another, and lose themselves by
slow and almost imperceptible degrees.
The outline must be saint in those parts which receive the
light, and strong and bold where the (hades falh
Begin
A balance
they serve foi
therefore be
with a famte1
Light obje
sustain them
light behind
to the groan
liahts and in
free, and rec
Those obj
view, must 1
finiihing: t
must be mac
appear distii
tance • the 1
distinguisha
leaves of a c
more accur<
dominion
of one, cha:
minutely an
Give to e
supposed sit
upon objeft
dows dark:
equal and u
{hades mu!
tinges the.
shadows wi
more gene
f* loiter. Tfc
light, catch
t lower parts
i
all ar!
stciple princi
dnftion to tli
°f different
aye exadtly i
lind ofobjed
' hthefirss
afferent kii
marked A j i