Chapter I

INTRODUCTORY — DESIGNING OF VALUE TO THE PRINTER — NATURAL ABILITY VERSUS INSTRUCTION — SMALL DESIGNS AS DIFFICULT AS LARGE — READER NOT TO BE DISCOURAGED BECAUSE HE CANNOT BE A FULL-FLEDGED ARTIST — “HOW SHOULD I BEGIN TO LEARN TO DRAW?” — LEARNING TO SEE — INSTRUCTION DOES NOT CONSIST OF NAMING MATERIALS — THE STUDY OF A HAT SEEN IN DIFFERENT POSITIONS — THE VALUE OF OBSERVATION.

There has been in recent years a marked change in the character of the printing done in this country; plain printing has been superseded by decorative printing; the typographer of a few years back was only a compositor and pressman, today he should be a designer as well. In view of that requirement this little treatise is written, in the hope that, though its advice may not make an illustrator out of its reader, it will at least acquaint him with some principles of design that he may apply in his daily practice.

The reader will not be deceived, the writer not misunderstood, if at the outset it is put on record that great success in art is dependent much more upon natural ability, aye, genius, than upon study, and that these chapters can only tell you how to study—they cannot guarantee you success. A man of fifty, a master printer, may study our advice thoroughly and then attempt to {18} draw an elephant chasing an African, and the result may be conspicuously inferior to the treatment of the same subject by little eight-year-old Johnny Green who is yet in the primary school; but Johnny Green may have “an eye for drawing” and our master printer be as devoid of it as is a cow of melody in her voice.

Not only is it true that without talent you must not expect to succeed in producing important pictures, such as full-page illustrations, double-column portraits, poster designs and large work in general, but it is almost more unlikely that you will succeed in designing the most simple tailpiece or initial letter. It is quite natural that you should suppose it a very easy task to design an initial letter or a tiny silhouette of a leaf or flower, a branch or wreath or two forming a “printer’s mark”; every artist in Christendom thinks the same—until he tries it; but you would be surprised if I filled this chapter with the history of certain initial letters and devices, and tracing them to their fountain head, we found that in nine cases out of ten they were designed by the very greatest artists of the time.

You can take it as an undisputed fact that should some publishing house wish an ordinary full-page illustration for a book, and at the same time a simple “publisher’s mark,” a device about an inch square for the title-page of that book, they would find ten artists who could execute the former to one who could design the latter so that it would be up to the standard of the best “marks” in history.

Is it then, you ask, our intention at the very start to discourage you, and advise you to attempt nothing because you cannot excel in anything? Not at all. A {19} country editor need not refrain from studying rhetoric so as to improve the style of his editorials, just because he knows that without genius he may not expect to equal the diction of Macaulay. The rhetoric may not give him wit to put in his editorials, but it at least may teach him to cast his sentences properly. So this treatise may not supply you with “art feeling,” but it will, we hope, show you how to make a design in a more workmanlike way than you would without our advice; and we most sincerely advise you to try.

Everyone in asking the question, “How should I begin to learn to draw?” expects that the answer will direct him to use certain materials in a certain way, and that by the manipulation of these materials in this certain way, he will get the desired result. So far as this treatise is concerned, the reader will be disappointed in this regard; it is true that the writer is particularly interested in the technic of the different graphic arts, and later on will have something to say about the best methods for pen drawing, for chalk-plate, for wood engraving; but in these first chapters on drawing it must be distinctly understood that our advice is that the student should not worry about what pencil or what paper he should use, or about how his lines should look, but should realize from the outset that his principal study should be the education of his eye. The reason that we do not draw well in infancy is because we have not learned to see. You may take it as a positive fact that the untrained eye of every man sees things in an absolutely incorrect manner—or rather he does not know how he sees things. Let us take, for example, an immense factory-building with over a hundred windows■

{20}

Pen drawing by E. Lansyer.

Looking at these buildings as in this picture, an artist knows that a doorway or a window in the building with the dome would appear as a perfect rectangle, as we see in the case of the main doorway, because seen “in front view”; but the windows in the buildings at the sides are not perfect rectangles because, being seen “in perspective,” or at an angle, their sills and lintels seem to tip downward. The uneducated eye, however, knowing them to be rectangles, sees them as such, not realizing that each receding window is narrower than its predecessor; and that, moreover, the lintels and sills of a window in a higher story have a greater tip than those of one below, and that every lintel has greater tip than its corresponding sill. This knowledge, however, should be known to all artists through the study of perspective.]

{21}

By Albert Engström.]

■{22} on its front and on its sides. Let us presume that a man is standing directly in front of the building; the chances are that he sees every window in a tolerably correct manner. He sees that all the windows are alike, etc.; that each is a certain distance from the other, etc. Good! But now let him walk to the end of the building and look at it diagonally; he still sees the building as he saw it in the front view; depend upon it, that he sees each window as a perfect rectangle, and each window the same distance from the other; he would be incapable of going home and showing you on a piece of paper the “direction” of every window line. Let an artist step in his place and he sees every window _different_ from the other! You probably do not realize the full truth of this statement at present, but you will after we have our chapter on perspective. For the present please take my word for it, and bear in mind that you must first learn to see.

Let us take the caricature by Albert Engström for our first lesson. We have selected it for two reasons: first, because it is a caricature, and we wish our readers to realize that this treatise is going to be of use to printers from the beginning, and that we are going to study drawing in an interesting manner. Many a printer is as well the publisher of a newspaper and feels that from time to time he would like to publish a caricature to enliven his pages, or at any rate he is interested in the cartoons in the illustrated press, and would like to know how they are done, and the best way to acquire this knowledge is to practice a little one’s self. Besides, the practice of caricaturing is most beneficial to every draftsman; there have been but few great painters who {23} have not indulged in it. Another reason for using this cut is that it is drawn in a very simple manner in a few strong lines. While the students at the art schools usually begin to get effects with light and shade, the printer will do well to master outline sooner than light and shade, for it is the most quickly executed and the most easily engraved, and, I need not add, last but not least, most easily printed. I should advise you then to take commonplace objects that are about the house and make innumerable sketches of them in the manner of this drawing. Take a derby hat for example, place it a little above the eye and endeavor to draw it as Engström did his. Do not worry much about your style of drawing, do not complain that your pen will not work and that you cannot get a line varying in thickness like this one; or if you do succeed, do not ask your friends to admire your handsome pen line; do not think about your drawing at all, but solely about learning to see. Place the hat above you, notice that you see the under part of the brim nearer you, and the inside of the brim on the far side; if there is not a head under the hat endeavor with a single curved line to indicate as much of the lining as you see; if you see anything else that is _not_ given in Engström’s drawing and you try to express it as he expresses things you employ an excellent method of study. Next place the hat in the same position but below the eye, on the seat of a chair, and notice that you no longer see under the brims but inside of them; then place the hat on its crown upon the chair so that you see the oval of the inside of its crown, and endeavor to express that oval with two semi-circles, as simple as the one which Engström uses in drawing the {24} crown of the hat. Again, put the hat on the mantelpiece and draw a side view of it; this will be more simple than any of the other views. I think that an hour’s practice of this kind will soon convince you that the casual glance of the uneducated eye does not take in a complete or perfect view of an object, but that after you have studied an object with a view to drawing it, you begin to see with more thoroughness. You will, I think, notice, as you walk home in the evening, the contours of the different hats that you see in the hatter’s■

By H. Gerbault.

Showing different kinds of hats in various positions.]

■window, and upon the pedestrians; you will begin to guess how you would draw such a hat or cap, and from time to time you will see headgear that “lends itself to drawing,” as it were; you will say, “When I go home I will try to draw that hat.” We print on this page an interesting drawing by Gerbault. To the casual observer a drawing of this kind simply represents some men with their hats on, and he enjoys looking at the hats collectively, while he may enjoy the individual {25} faces; but the illustrator, with his practiced eye, finds enjoyment in examining the way each individual hat is drawn. You will find the same enjoyment if you practice drawing hats as we have recommended, and it is needless to say that your enjoyment will be profitable, and, moreover, that your practice need not be limited to the drawing of hats, but may embrace coats, gloves, and shoes as well.

If such is the influence upon your mind made by this chapter, we feel sure that you will never regret having read it and given the time to the practice we recommend, and we think that the first step in the study of drawing will have been made, and that you will feel it has been a successful one.

{26} CHAPTER II.

MORE ABOUT HATS — PERSPECTIVE MAY BE LEARNED FROM THEM — DRAWING MORE A MATTER OF SEEING PROPERLY THAN USE OF PEN — TEXTURE — SILHOUETTE DRAWINGS USED BY EGYPTIANS.

We trust that you followed the advice of our former chapter, that you tried to draw a hat in several positions, and that you then found, as we prophesied, that you were led to observe the hats that you saw in the street with a new sense of discernment; if that is true, you will appreciate this chapter, we think, though it be very short.

We select two more caricatures for you, in which we find hats that are very similar. Now we can tell you quite positively whether you have an eye for drawing or not. Stop a moment, and before reading the next paragraph, look at these hats, pages 28, 29, and argue out the reason why they are drawn as they are; if your reasons are somewhat like the following, your chances for learning to draw are good; if not, you have much study ahead of you, even before you can make a start.

Your observation is good if you realize that in drawing almost anything you may represent it as a silhouette. The Egyptians did much of their writing in hieroglyphs, using silhouette pictures of thousands of different objects; helmets and crowns, hands and feet, men and animals, tools and utensils were employed as characters in their alphabet; and if you see plainly how a silhouette is made by outlining an object as it is seen from one point {27} of view, usually a perfect side view, the object on a level with the eye, and that the outline is filled in with black, you may be sure that you have been observing correctly. You will notice then that these two hats are (1) on a level with the eye, for if (2) below the eye, you would see the top of the crown and into the brim; if (3) above the eye, you would see underneath the brim. You notice also that the “Hedin” is the true silhouette, which is made by leaving out the lights on the side, the suggestion of the band, and the upper edge of the brim. You will also notice (4), particularly in the “Jörgen,” that the feet are as though the gentleman were walking on a chalk-line on a table and the spectator sitting on a low chair, so that the feet were on a level with his eye; this is a characteristic feature of Egyptian hieroglyphs. If the feet were drawn realistically they would not only not be on a line one with the other, but we would seem to look down upon the shoes, as ordinarily a man’s feet are below the spectator’s eye.

We think that this is enough for one lesson, and if you find that the propositions that we have numbered are not clear to you, you would better work out the problems on a sheet of paper. We take it for granted that Nos. 1 and 2 are clear to anyone who drew the hats according to our last chapter; but Nos. 3 and 4 may not be so evident; if not, get a pair of shoes and put them on the mantel on a level with your eye; next place them upon the floor in the position in which one ordinarily walks or stands, and our propositions will be clear to you.

It is most important that you should understand all these matters of optics, though it makes little difference■

{28}

By Albert Engström.

The hat and coat are pure silhouette, the face “suggestive outline.”]

{29}

By Albert Engström.

The hat and shoes are partially silhouette; but the high lights upon them are connected with finished work.]

■{30} with what kind of a pen you may make your drawing. Having mastered these principles, you would then understand such a criticism on Engström’s work as the following: Mr. Engström sometimes employs the pure silhouette, as in the “Hedin,” and sometimes silhouette in a modified form, as in the “Jörgen”; in the former case an artist sacrifices rotundity, detail and texture (the white streaks on the “Jörgen” hat suggest the surface of the beaver; this we call texture; a felt hat has no such white streaks upon it, and might be adequately represented by a set of lines such as are used on Jörgen’s coat, but no silhouette can suggest texture); in his caricatures Engström unites with the silhouette effect the single-plane effect of the Egyptian hieroglyphs. (The hieroglyphs were mostly painted on walls and the feet represented as though flush with the wall, and not one farther from us than the other, hence we say that they are on one plane.) Many caricaturists have effectually burlesqued the Egyptian method of drawing and the placing of their figures. The trousers and the cane in the “Jörgen” drawing are the only objects in one plane; the coat collar is distinctly rounded. In the Moloch illustration we see also silhouette treatment. You can easily imagine how Hedin’s hat, if the proper size, would fittingly rest on Crispi’s head.

{31}

Caricature by B. Moloch.

An example of silhouette drawing.]

{32}

Designed by Eugene Grasset.]