A drawing is complete when you have nothing more to add to it. It is finished when you feel you have done enough. It is as simple as that.

But one or two points occur to me that might help you arrive at that decision. Fill your page completely, from top to bottom and side to side. The reason for this is, that before you can confidently leave out, you must overdo what you put in. The same applies when you are concerned with studies of single objects, or details, that you are going to incorporate into a larger work. It is also easier to frame a completed drawing in your sketch book. But never tear out a picture if you can help it. Keep a sketch book intact. If you want a particular scene framed do another version of it from the original sketch. Sometimes, however, it cannot be avoided. A sketch book picture has to come out. But do be careful when doing so. It is easy to tear your drawing and your sketch book as well. The binding will become loose and all the pages fall out.

PANORAMAS

I have suggested that using a viewfinder is helpful in settling the problem of what to draw. However you may want to do the view next to the one you have chosen. Add that view to the one you have already completed, either on the page opposite or by adding a further section. This can be attached with tape quite easily and will fold into your sketch book neatly. You can, if you want, continue adding as many
sections of views as you like, folding them into your sketch book and attaching them with masking tape Any change of tone, or even style, from section to section will not harm the total effect when you pull out the finished work. On the contrary, it adds something to it.

Remember, though, the view must continue from one section to another. The lines in a panoramic drawing must move easily from drawing to drawing, else it will look odd.

TIME MARCHES ON

It is not always possible to devote hours to one work outdoors. This fact must be recognized. Rain, disturbances, limited time available, will tend to cut down the time you can devote to a picture or drawing. This need not deter you, however, from producing any finished work. If you are very short of time, go for quick lively sketches. Make lots of notes that mie:ht help you and finish them up at home. Also, with a more ambitious work, if you cannot complete it out-of-doors, finish it off at home.
It is best to do lots of rough studies of a scene, plus one or two careful details and a few written observations. Then, when you get home, assemble the material into a completely new picture.
Making up two or three half-finished sketches into a completely new work is one of the things I shall be discussing in the chapter on composition. For the moment, let me say
this. Outdoor drawing and painting is the best source of
ideas. It should be persevered with and will reward you in many ways. As you will have realized, there are few rules to bother about. The approach I have taken is purely practical.
If you have drawn inside, you will be able to draw outside.
There is no hard way and there is no easy way. There is only your way. And that is the only thing I want to encourage you to develop. If you are in doubt, or find your spirits flagging, go and look at the drawings and paintings of those great artists who have got their inspiration from working outdoors. Turner, Constable, Samuel Palmer, Cox, de Wint and, in our day, Carel Weight, Ruskin Spear, John Minton, Edward Bawden, etc. There are many of them and their works will help you. By relating your problems to these works you will find not only help, but appreciation as well.

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.

It may not always be convenient to do a full-bodied tonal drawing. You may not even want to try. A simple line drawing is a quick and handy way to express an idea or to put down something you have seen and remembered. It is also useful for doing sketches of people who won’t keep still and of capturing the fleeting ebb and flow of life outdoors.

However, we don’t see things in line as there are no lines in nature. In nature, forms merge and are lost and found again. Lines are invented, you might say, to put round things as they are seen. In spite of this, a simple line drawing does give us a sense of reality.

A line drawing is nearer a symbol than any other form of drawing. Consequently, to make that symbol interesting, the more the line varies, the more it parallels reality. Thin and thick lines, textures, patterns, all help to give a line drawing vitality. You can make textures with a flexible pen quite easily (Fig. 10) and you can vary the contours of forms, scribble and smudge with your finger to give an interesting variation of line.

Fig. 10. Pen line textures

And you can darken parts of your drawing, not so much to represent tone, but to simulate color. A rich dark in a line drawing can give a sense of co lor, without the use of shading or actual color (Fig. 11). The secret, then, in line drawing is in what you leave out and not what you put in. It is the important shapes that must be stressed, and the significant detail last. As you will get little help from nature in this, you can experiment with all sorts of ways of trying to eliminate what you don’t need.

The object of a good line drawing is to be as simple as possible, and it will take a little practice to be able to select the lines and darks you want. But as you can see it is an interesting experiment because you will never be really sure how the thing will turn out, and that’s where the fun comes in.

Fig. 30 – This drawing is a more difficult example of the method followed In Figs. 26 and 27. The drawing is made with pencil on firm linen paper and then completed In the manner shown In Fig. 27. The accentuation, as shown by the solid black lines, may be made according to the artistic taste of the draftsman.

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.

All lines should be drawn on double the scale shown in this work. Lack of space makes great reduction necessary.

Lines should be drawn as heavy as those immediately below.

Contrasting Light Exercise – A and B in Fig. 9 are further examples of the contrast effected by varying directions of the light. In the former, the sun is somewhere behind the background; in the latter, the sun is behind the spectator. These examples are excellent as exercises in pen and ink.

Fig. 10 is another instance of light and shade. contrast. It is intended as a pen exercise. Note the foliage drawn in groups of little parallel lines used to produce the effect of individual leaves. These should be drawn with quick lines.

Exercise in Quick Lines – Fig. 11 is an instance where the desired effect could hardly be secured without the use of quick lines. The swirling, rushing appearance of the rapid flowing waters is produced by swift strokes of the pen firmly controlled. Make careful pencil sketch of this or something similar and see what you can produce in this effective style.

Wavy Line Exercises – Practice the pen lines in Figs. 13, 14 and 15; each exercise on paper about four inches square. The lower right-hand copy by means of a stub pen or one blunted by long use.

Pen-and-ink drawing is not, as might be imagined, a comparatively recent form of artistic work, for in the great galleries of Europe one may find many interesting specimens of pen work made by Angelo, Raphael, Durer, Titian and others of the great masters. The manner of handling and style of pen work has changed, however, with modern inventions in the way of reproductive methods. The very spirit of pen work has changed only within a comparatively few years.

Continue Pencil Drawing – Even after pen-and-ink drawing is taken up, practice with the pencil should be continued.

The longer the pupil draws with the pencil and crayon the better. They are the most convenient and effective utensils at the artist’s command. Their frequent use should never be discarded.

Inability to make corrections easily in inked lines will discourage the student who is conscientious. Pencil and crayon are valuable because mistakes can be easily corrected at the time they are made. Before a mistake made with a pen can be rectified the ink must be quite dry, and the erasures must be made carefully, especial pains being taken not to disturb or roughen the surface of the paper or cardboard. Erasure may be made with a sharp knife or ink eraser; or the misplaced lines may be hidden or obscured by the use of a glaze of Chinese white.

Outline First With Pencil – Some teachers advocate drawing with pen-and-ink without the aid of a preliminary sketch with pencil. Writes one such teacher, “Practice drawing these (referring to certain subjects to be drawn) as rapidly as you can, without using the pencil in any way, using ink as a medium, you will be more apt to observe with care the exact character of each touch than if you employed the pencil whose marks can be so easily erased. This will, in time, give you greater confidence and facility of hand than can be had with either pencil or crayon.”

The quoted advice is wrong. The beginner should draw as slowly as possible. The writer is positive in these statements, and he is making them after many years of experience spent almost exclusively in making pen drawings for all sorts of practical purposes.

To enlarge or reduce one may resort to any of the following methods:

(1) Photography.

(2) The mechanical instrument known as the pantograph.

(3) The mechanical instrument known as the proportional dividers.

(4) Free hand drawing. Good practice, but not conducive to accuracy.

(5) Squaring the original by means of intersecting horizontal and vertical lines. This requires great care in preparation and use. The squares must be square and usually require numbering along at least two sides of the original and of the copy.

(6) Triangulation. An old and simply made geometrical form which I have adopted for the purpose of enlarging and reducing.

In my practice it has, since my discovery of its new use, entirely superseded the laborious, if time-honored, methods. By its use ordinary care produces accurate work, no measurements being required except when laying out the perimeters.

In the squaring method even an ordinary reduction or enlargement requires from 16 to 64 squares, the latter with boundary numbers 1, 2, 3,4, 5,6, 7 and 8 on at least two sides of both original and copy. In this maze the draftsman is apt (to become “lost.” In the method I have adopted, the triangulation forms a pattern which aids the eye to keep within the proper corresponding spaces. That is, each triangle, in the original and in the drawing under way, occupies a distinctive and individual position not observable in the squares.

I have not space here to describe the numerous applications and advantages of the triangular method, nor even to describe its operation beyond giving a diagram of its most primitive, simplest form, as shown in the accompanying figures.

These figures merely show the progress of the method. A square or other parallelogram is drawn first, the oblique, vertical and horizontal lines being added.

In a drawing in which the detail is complex, the triangles are easily subdivided, both in the original and in the drawing to be made from it.

Not alone is this method superior in every way to the “squaring” process, but it provides a sure and easy way to make regularly proportional distortions.

Not long ago an engraver on old gold and silver ware came to me. He was distressed. An order had been given to him in which it was required that certain heraldric devices should appear on some silver plate. The devices included the pleasant-looking creature shown in Fig.1.

The engraver’s trouble was that the mythological animal had to be reproduced in narrow vertical and horizontal panels, respectively, of certain definite dimensions. My engraver friend did not know how to get the “critter” squeezed and distended into anything like proper proportions.

Figs. 2 and 3 show the engraver’s purpose was satisfactorily accomplished.

It is to be hoped that the result pleased his customer. It was my conjecture that the griffons might be intended for evolutional ancestral portraits and if my surmise was correct the two distortions might serve as portraits of two of his ancestors-one attenuated and the other obese. Anyway, I would as soon trace my origin to a fine official and officious looking griffon – or whatever it is – as to a grinning, chat. tering chimpanzee.

Another Example – Fig. 4 is another example of what may be done in the way of varying the form of an area in which any design may be placed.

Imitation or copy drawing is valuable at the outset, as it imparts style or method of handling. To an extent it reveals the personality. By its use the pupil gains accuracy of eye measurement, errors in that respect being more readily shown than when drawing from model.

Drawing from copy also trains the eye by giving it some means of correcting its mistake in the estimate of lengths and values of lines.

Perspective or object drawing gives a knowledge of form, color, and construction. Ideas of relation and relative sizes are thus acquired.

Imaginary and memory drawings enable the pupil to express thought and impart ideas.

Intermingling parts of all three supports, helps and explains the others.
In copying one is shown how.
In object drawing one sees how.
In imaginative drawing one thinks how.

EYE MEASUREMENTS

Measurement Exercise – As the pupil progresses, greater accuracy in eye-measurement will become apparent. This can be hastened by frequent practice exclusively in this direction.

A good plan is for the teacher to draw straight lines of various determined lengths, requiring pupils to bisect, trisect and quadrisect them at regular intervals. Thus, draw a line four inches long to be divided in half. Then the same line in three equal divisions; then into four equal divisions.

PROPORTION

Proportion, and What Is Meant by Out of Proportion – For example: If a picture of a man were drawn with the head twice as long as the head should be, as is shown in Fig. 1, Chap. 19, that would be called out of proportion, because it would be unnatural.

It should be in “good proportion,” which means it should be near the natural size as compared with other parts of the body. The ability to draw the figure in proper proportion requires considerable practice, close observation and accurate eye-measurement.

Varying Proportions – In drawing the head of a child, the same proportions as adults does not exist; the child’s head being larger in proportion to the body than in the case of adults. There are also further variations. Putting a very small head on the body of a child would make the drawing appear as much out of proportion as in the case of the overlarge head referred to. In caricature, lapses from true proportion are permitted. Then it is done purposely to produce a ludicrous effect.

Relative Proportions – Ability to represent the relative size or proportion of one object to another is an essential element in correct drawing. To accomplish this the pupil requires aid from the teacher.

An effective method of teaching this is to choose some object for a unit of measure or comparison, and place others beside it, one or several at a time.

Any well-known object will do, as, for instance, a piece of fruit, such as an apple or an orange-or a ball.

Exercise in Proportion – Make a drawing of the object selected and compare it with some other object of about the same size. Then place beside them still another object, two or three times as large, such as a book or cap. Now let the pupil make a drawing showing the three objects in their relative sizes.

Any small wooden or cardboard box may be used in connection with other small boxes to demonstrate proportionate sizes.

Place the apple (or whatever object is selected) on a box and draw both in proportion.

Proceed with the exercise by drawing from imagination (or copy) some other object with which the student is familiar and draw the object in proportion. The subject may be a bird, a mouse, a set of keys, a cup, mug – any object that is not larger than the box itself.

Simple Landscapes – Fig. 5 presents five simple landscapes in which the economy in lines used is a leading feature. Pupils will derive benefit from the study of such examples. The fewer lines that can be used to produce the general effect the better.

Rapid Line Exercises – Fig. 6 comprises subjects suitable for pencil sketches, or for enlargement on the blackboard. They are examples in rapid line effects where strength of execution is aimed at rather than detail, of which there is a conspicuous absence. The introduction of color into this will be easy for teacher and pupil.

Further Application of Lines – In the simple landscape, Fig. 8, will be found many of the lines which enter into nearly all practice work. First, as in Fig. 7, faintly sketch the general masses, so they can be easily erased if they are not properly placed. Figure 7 shows how this can be done. The little figures at the right may be introduced into the finished picture. If used, their placing is to be left subject to the individual taste and ingenuity of the pupil. Should they be used in the foreground, they should be enlarged considerably.

Students should be encouraged to make their drawings as neat as possible. However, it's better to hae a messy-looking drawing that is correct in its essentials than a clean, spick & span drawing full of inaccuracies in the way of misplaced lines, tones or shadows.

The letters locate the corresponding lines in Fig. 8 and are not for use in the pupil’s sketch, but are placed to show where the corresponding lines and tints are to be found.