In these circumstances, it is better to train your memory. You will find that it is much easier to draw an image just after you have seen it. The longer you leave the impression the weaker it becomes. Train yourself to look at people and observe what they do.

First, just let the image soak in without analyzing it. Then, without referring back to the subject, try and jot down what you remember while it is still fresh in your mind. With practice you will get better and better at it and you will find you are remembering things quite easily. Don’t force yourself to remember. Let it come spontaneously. You will find, also, that you will be able to note exactly what people wear, what their faces were like, what poses they took up. People move so quickly that this is the only way to get to grips with drawing them.

WHAT TO PUT IN – WHAT TO LEAVE OUT

The eye has a tendency to prefer little shapes to big masses. It also prefers to build up an image bit by bit. It tries to take in as much as possible, all at once; so that you can comprehend the scene immediately. This is the way the eye functions for the purposes of day-to-day seeing. The eye must be quick and alert and, in endeavoring to take in so much, it often gets confused. Consequently our picture of the world does not always tally with the real world. At best it is a makeshift picture we have in our mind.

But here lies the change which must take place when you start to draw outside. Once you slow down and start looking at the world in a more leisurely fashion, you have time to take in the scene, not only in its detail, but in its broader aspects. You realize that all the detail the eyes show you isn’t entirely necessary to build up a picture of reality. Even more so when you are drawing reality. Leaving things out in a drawing can be just as effective as putting them in.

A study of Chinese drawings will help you understand this. There, what is left out, is just as important as what is left in. They are counterparts to each other. Our eyes and mind cope with a vast amount of visual matter for the purposes of living. In a drawing, when there is time to look and digest what you see, too much detail can be irritating. The eye wants some rest, it needs emptiness as well as fullness.

Looking at drawings that are so cluttered up with detail that you cannot see the wood for the trees is not uncommon, and it is perhaps better to get over this phase by deliberately putting in as much detail as you can manage. Then, with practice, you will get to know what to leave out. You will know what will be confusing in your drawing.

This, I hope, will also help you to understand different types of drawings. Good drawings say more than is apparent at first glance (Fig. 24). Bad drawings say everything at once and become incoherent. A good drawing will, like nature, guard its secrets carefully, only letting out what is contained in it bit by bit. A bad drawing will disclose itself quickly. You will be bored with it just as quickly.

The same rule operates with drawings as with paintings. If you wish to pack your painting with all the detail you see, do so. But to control all the detail requires infinite patience. When you have completed the picture you may find the result doesn’t warrant all the labor spent. It is better not to have too strong a bias either way; one should strive for a nice balance between the effort expended and the finished result.

From this, we can infer that while it is an advantage to have something, it is also useful to have nothing at the same time (Fig. 25.)

VIEWPOINT
The viewpoint you take up will affect the angles of the things seen. It will affect your foreground and, by being either up or down, change the middle and background too. If you are high up you will see more background; you will be looking right down on to things.

If you are set low you will be looking up at them. All this may sound obvious, but it is amazing, when we first start drawing outdoors, how easy it is to forget the obvious.

In selecting your viewpoint don’t be timid about letting any object, a tree or a lamp-post, sit right in front of your vision. An object, close to you, that you have to see round or through, makes an excellent foreground, and will create an interesting lead into the middle distance.

Similarly, a line of the road that shoots away and enters into the center of the picture, will give movement. Avoid the viewpoint in which all the angles are either horizontal or perpendicular. This tends to create monotony. Look for angles that move down or up. Movements that are inherent in nature, but which are so difficult to pin down into a small rectangle.

COLOR

Color should be used sparingly on the first few outings, and at best should not be used too lavishly. If you start flinging color all over everything, you will destroy the very point of using color. Color can be very effective for giving just that extra kick to a black and white drawing, as long as it does not swamp the drawing altogether. Restraint when painting is necessary. Your control over what you are doing is lessened if you use too many colors. Mix, at first, only the very obvious colors you can see, avoid attempting all the subtle halftones. Better to draw those in, than to try and work out how to do them. If you have one or two important colors to deal with you will find that they will be sufficient to give liveliness and sparkle to your sketch.

This applies to both opaque and transparent watercolor, though it is probably easier to get the halftones more successfully with transparent washes, it is still better to use restraint.

DRAWING PEOPLE

Drawing people outdoors is a little difficult for the one good reason they never keep still for one minute, and as soon as they spy you doing a sketch of them either take umbrage or hare off immediately. It is possible to go into a crowded place with a small sketch book and discreetly draw people as they move about. But this is not easy. It needs an iron nerve and a good eye.

The rooms of your home, the passages, the kitchen, the bedroom, the bathroom even (Bonnard often painted his bathroom) all are possible subjects. And then there is portraiture.

Portraits are probably the most difficult, but the most interesting subjects of all. The human face has fascinated the artist from time immemorial. In one way or another, it has been a favorite subject.

When starting a portrait, make sure that your sitter is very comfortable. If he is not, he will fidget and you will not be able to concentrate. At first draw somebody while they are having a snooze. Or, if you can’t find somebody to pose, draw yourself in a mirror. Self-portraits have been done by every artist at one time or another because the artist makes such a good sitter. There is not likely to be any argument about likeness, for instance.

Likeness is the one thing we want to achieve and never seem to get. Right, then forget about the likeness. Concentrate on the shape and the form and the light and the dark and the character of what you see. In this way you will get a truth about the person that no photograph could arrive at.

A few points to remember when doing a portrait: get the light so that it illuminates the front of the head (the face) and the side goes into the shadow. This will give solidity to the form. Draw from a three-quarter angle at first, as a frontal view can be very difficult. Rough out the big shapes in charcoal. Leave the detail of eyes, nose, mouth and hair until last. Half close your eyes continually.

When you are satisfied with the big shapes then, and only then, work on the smaller shapes and the detail in conte and/or carbon, finishing with white chalk. Don’t draw the head larger than life but, on the other hand, don’t reduce it to the size of a postage stamp. Above all, leave those delightful little highlights in the eyes to the very last. It won’t get you very far if you start on them too early.

In a portrait it is well to get the differences of size between forehead and hair, nose to chin. This is again a question of shape, but it is very important in portraiture. Remember that eyes, too, though important, shouldn’t be drawn in too quickly at the beginning. The eyes in fact do not protrude as you may think. They go back under the brow. If you place your light above the head you will see what I mean.

When you have drawn a few portraits with the side light, rearrange the lighting to give top, or even bottom light. Try two sources of light, a stronger one in the front and a weaker light behind. Move your sitter into different comfortable poses. It will make a new subject every time.

Exercises in Ornamental Pen Drawing, shown in Figs. B and E (Figs. 26 and 27), are much less complex than would appear at first glance. The method of producing these examples of confusion in decorative design is as follows:

Make a drawing on thin, rough, linen paper of the motif in Fig. A. Then transfer in group form-one transfer over the other.

The pencil transfers will appear as at B, only the spaces will be dark. Then outline with ink but do not cross the dark spaces. When the ink is dry erase the pencil lines and the design will appear as in B.

As a preliminary exercise to the design, Fig. E, make a pencil drawing of the unit Fig. C and outline with ink. Erase pencil lines and the unit design D will appear. The design E is a repetition of the unit D, the only difference being that when the pencil transfers from C are made care must be taken not to cross with pen lines any of the dark transfer lines.

The complicated design at the right is an example of what can be done with a cardboard curve.

The outlines of the cardboard curve, as shown on that page and reversed, were repeated several times with faint outlines. The outlines were then strengthened and accentuated untiI the accompanying design was developed. The operation is quite simple and quickly done.

Fig. 16 is a greatly reduced reproduction of a crayon sketch. Figs. 17 and 18 are pen drawings of the same subject copied from the original, Fig. 16. In Fig. 17, the head of the old man is treated in very simple style, while in Fig. 18, more detail is added, until in the final sketch, Fig. 19, there is even more light-and-shade effect than in the original drawing.

Select a similar subject and make several faint pencil sketches of subject, and finish them with pen and ink, but each succeeding drawing with increasing intricacy.

Imitating Pencil With Pen Lines

Figs. 22 and 23 are pen-and-ink exercises, similar to Figs. 25 and 26, except that the drawings are not transferred, the pen drawings being made directly on the linen paper on which the soft pencil sketches were made.

In Fig. 22, the dog is drawn by means of two or more nearly parallel lines (and occasional closely placed dots) to represent the single broad lines made by the soft pencil. The pencil lines are then erased, leaving the peculiarly soft and pleasing effect shown. In this exercise it is advisable to use a new, finely pointed pen.

In Figs. 23 and 24 the drawings are started the same as in Fig. 22, except that closely placed and carefully modulated dots are used to represent the pencil lines. When finished, erase the pencil lines. The faces in the lower part of Fig. 2S are stippled as in Fig 23. The result in each case is an effect similar to the original drawing. Drawings thus made are valuable chiefly for their permanence and adaptability in reproduction for printing purposes.

Youth and Old Age – Curved, graceful lines convey the impression of youth, while straight, angular lines are those mostly used to express age in various stages of advancement. In vegetable life, as may be noted (Fig. II), the young have graceful lines. while in their old age angularity of lines is apparent.

Contrasts of some sort are generally considered necessary to every drawing. Contrasts are not invariably caused by strength of line or tone or areas of black against white; but they are frequently matters of character and costume. Thus, a tramp talking to a finely dressed man appears more tattered than if he were addressing a commonly clad person, or if he wer’e in a group made up of his own class. A short, fat man seems more obese if his companion in the picture is long and lean.

When we do not go to nature for expression we adopt certain conventional representations of emotion. By the means of these we are enabled to convey by such lines and tones the visible signs which the face gives when mental agitation is taking place.
Indifference, joy, anger, all the emotions, in fact, serve a useful purpose to the student of art.

On succeeding pages (Figs. 3-6) are given slight hints for what may be termed the emotions arranged in such a way as to be easily understood. The pupil may adopt, adapt, amend or exaggerate according to his own ideas and judgment and, of course, according to his advancement.

It should be understood that it is practically impossible to represent all the emotions with lifeless material. Many of the faces herewith shown might be unintelligible were it not for the text that accompanies them. How seldom it is that one can read the thoughts of even a real human being by means of the expression on his face merely. Nevertheless, some people can scarcely conceal their thoughts, although they speak not a word.

A man there was whose emotions were usually shown in his face. A bright young lady said to him: “You shouldn’t think so people can see you.”What a splendid model he would have made!’

The actor can make quick facial changes indicating the emotions he imitates, whereas the artist is limited to immovable lines. The artist must take one expression or, perhaps, merely a phase of the expression, and then attempt to represent the emotion he desires to portray, fixing it immovably. unchanging. He can portray but one movement of many that in life go to tell the story of emotion without words.

Emotion Pictures – In all ages workers with the brush and canvas, mallet and marble, have been practically unanimous in accepting certain representations of form to parallel, as well as they may, muscular and color changes caused by mental emotion-the telegraphic signals of the brain in action. Take, for instance, the facial diagram that portrays joy. In this the emotion is mostly expressed by the partly closed, but vivid eye, the mouth, with lips slightly apart, and the corners of the mouth slightly elevated.

The figures depicting sorrow show the muscles of the face relaxed. In application the head should be inclined forward, the inner ends of the eyebrows are raised toward the forehead, the eyelids droop, while the pupil of the eye is raised. The lips are parted, somewhat as in joy, but the corners of the mouth are lowered. The general tendency of this emotion, because of the laxity of the muscles, is to lengthen the face. When sorrow, pity, pain, dejection, or melancholy, hold sway, man’s face is proverbially long.
Pain, anguish and despair can hardly be separated from the general term of sorrow; to an extent they are analogous, synonymous.

Next, take the figures denoting anger. The eyes blaze (usually shown in a black-and-white drawing by a very dark iris and strong high lights), the eyebrows are contracted, with the inner. ends downward, and the outer ends inclining upward. The lips are compressed at the center, with a tendency to parting at the outer ends of the mouth.

Approximately, the same lines are used to express revenge, hatred, rage and fury; different degrees of intensity and rigidity of lines being used to suit the ideas of the individual.
The study of expression is so full of interest that the pupil is easily encouraged to go to nature in order to gather more than a slight smattering of knowledge on this subject.

The effect and force of nearly every drawing in which the human face appears depends very largely on the’ extent to which the artist knows how to give expression to the human features. The beholder of the picture can be guided only by the artist’s interpretation; if it is false, the picture is misleading, therefore valueless.

The definitions that accompany these diagram-like outlines of the various emotions are conventional. They are not absolute, and are even interchangeable to some degree. They are offered as hints and suggestions to aid individual observation.

For the real thing in the way of emotion no better aid can he had than a mirror. Let the pupil survey himself in that and sketch the changes in his own features. Let him make faces at himself and then sketch them. He should try to keep the varying expressions in mind long enough to transfer to paper the principal lines by which they are formed.

Expression in the human face must be felt. It is difficult to teach it. There are so many minor points which go to make up the varied expressions that can be assumed by human features that detailed instruction is almost impossible.
Animation may be expressed. by dark touches in the eyes and under the lids. The nose also has much to do with expression; especially the shape of the nostrils and the direction “of the lines of the sides of the nose running down to the mouth. Nostrils that droop downward at the outer edge give a serious expression; on the contrary, if the line is elevated, the tendency is towards a bright and animated expression.

The mouth, of course, is of great importance, and influences the expression more than any other feature. When smiling, the corners are turned upward and the lines or dimples are curved in an outward direction. In a sad face, the corners of the mouth drop downward and the lines grow straight.”

The student of expression must look for indications in many faces, for there he will find more suggestions of importance than in all the pages of written instruction. Without such knowledge, he may work on blindly, puzzling himself to find out where he is wrong, and why the expression is just the opposite of what it should be.

The Left Hand as a Model – Holding the left hand in any rigid position that is most convenient and using it as a model is fine exercise. The hands are among the most difficult objects to draw, but by continued practice and observation much of the difficulty is overcome. The blocking-in method is particularly required in drawing the hands and feet.

Here is shown the effect of drawing faces by means of horizontal and vertical guide lines and by means of blocking-in lines, and also the effect of drawing without these aids. See how “out-of-drawing” the faces on the right appear!

Line Variations – Fig. 3 – Two big crayon faces. Pupils may be given a subject, together with instructions to make one drawing in which ordinary lines are used, and then to treat the same subject with extremely heavy lines, using a broad-pointed pencil or crayon. The lines in the latter exercise should be made broad, with single, modulated strokes in order to make the lines sufficiently broad, instead of going over and over in order to obtain breadth.

The same subject may be treated with accentuated line:” and with shaded lines to give the impression of form.

Human Figures in Action – In portraying figures in action, the principles of equilibrium may portray various forms oi action other than falling, but a figure out of balance conveys to the eye the impression of falling. Thus:

In the upper drawing the figures have no “visible means
of support.” In the lower part the deficiency is supplied.
As a general rule, if a vertical line is drawn from the feet upward, and half of the figure lies on each side of the line, the figure will appear balanced.

Proportions of the Human Figure – The Greek statues have regulated and determined the standard of beauty in art. These proportions, however, vary in individual cases and individual tastes. They are, however, valuable as a foundation from which modifications may be made.

In the Greek statues, the height of a developed man was usually eight heads; that is, the head was one-eighth the length of the body.

The height of a woman, Greek standard, about seven heads. The human figure may be divided into four parts of equal
length, namely:

1. From the top of the head to the arm-pit.
2. From the arm.-pit to the middle of the body.
3. From the middle of the body to the knees.
4. From the knees to the soles of the feet.

From finger-tip to finger-tip, when the arms are extended
at right angles to the body equals the length of the entire figure from crown to toes.

The face may be divided into three parts:

1. From the top of the forehead to the root of the nose.
2. From the root of the nose to the bottom of the nose.
3. From the bottom of the nose to the bottom of the chin. The ear is the length of the nose and its general direction is parallel to it.

From the top of the shoulder to the elbow measures twice the length of the face.

From the elbow to the wrist, one head.

The hand measures three-quarters of a head from the tip of the middle finger to the wrist.

The foot measures one-sixth of the whole length of the body.

These proportions are not exact or to be arbitrarily followed.

Drawing the Human Figure

When drawing the head, whether in profile or three-quarter view, avoid making the facial line too upright. There can be no rigid rule regarding this or any other part of the human figure, on account of the variance of different persons. The degree of difference is even greater if we consider racial variances.

Making the features too small is a common error.

Sometimes, however, the error is in the opposite direction, especially in respect to the eyes. They should not be made too large for the face. In drawing the normal eye, place the pupil slightly under the upper lid. Do not draw a line directly under the eyeball. If this is done, it is apt to give an impression of soreness to the eyes. Let the line indicating the upper line of the lower lid be a trifle distant from the eyeball. Eyelashes should be sparingly introduced. Eyebrows should not be too strongly demarked.

The ears should not be longer than the nose, and they should be level with it.

Things to Avoid

Do not make the mouth too small.

Do not make the space from the eyebrows to the top of the head too narrow.

Do not make finger nails too distinct or prominent.

Do not make goose-necks on your women nor bull-necks on your men and children.

Do not make the arms too long, unless you are making a caricature and wish to produce an ape-like effect.

Guide Lines Again – When intending to draw a draped or clothed figure, first draw, in faint lines, the figure itself through the clothes. Erase the faint lines, which are guide lines only. This method will be of special assistance in get¬ting the feet in the right place and in the right direction. That is, first draw the feet without the shoes, putting the latter on afterwards.

The Progression of a Drawing

In this exercise the progression of a drawing is shown. A, B, C, D and E in Fig. I are not intended as separate drawings.

A is the start, B the next step, and so on until the completion E.

In Fig. 2 the lines in A are partly repeated in the final drawing D E. The examples are given to show how the pictures are to be started and the order in which they should be finished.

These are only suggestions and the pupil should be requested to base other subjects, either serious or comic along similar lines.


Incentive to Ingenuity

In this interesting exercise (Figs. 5 and 6) the curves on which the subjects are based are shown in heavy lines as keys to the original motif. As the exercise is intended as an incentive to the display of ingenuity, mere accuracy in execution should not be required.

Further Advanced Exercises

These are exercises similar to Figs. 5 and 6, but are farther advanced. Draw any desired curves and angles and then construct human figures based on these lines. Subjects of a humorous character will be found the easiest to produce.

Circle Exercises

Let the pupil make several circles and curves and then dispose of them in the composition of a figure. The examples in Fig. 10 will serve to show what can be accomplished in this direction.

SUGGESTIONS

In a drawing that presents a pleasing aspect to the eye much is left to the suggestion and to the imagination of the observer. For instance, in drawing the stones in a stone wall it is only necessary, as a usual thing, to suggest a few of the stones. In the same manner, a few bricks are all that need be indicated in a brick house to show that it is a brick house. A few leaves, sometimes, in the foreground of a drawing contain all the detail of that sort that is required to indicate the foreground foliage.

By pictorial means, we suggest or indicate things, some of which have neither form, quality, visible appearance, or in fact, any physical manifestation whatever.

By means of lines, aided by association of ideas, we are able to symbolize the intangible. In time the symbolic definition of an object becomes as familiar, or nearly so, as the material meaning. Thus, the anchor is the symbol of Hope; the key of Knowledge; the owl of Wisdom.

Here are a few symbolic objects that make good subjects for school room exercises:

Learning represented by the Justice, represented by scales or sword, or both together.
Bondage, represented by shackles.
Dove, peace.
Time, represented by the hour Dog- (bull), watchfulness, glass.
Mule, stubbornness.
Peace, represented by the olive branch.
Lion, royalty and dignity.
Eagle, domination.