Page:Drawing for Beginners.djvu/23

 white chalk gives the highest lights, and the paper itself forms the middle tone.

I know of nothing more interesting than sketching animals, dogs, rabbits, and goats with these three mediums.

White chalk needs very little pointing. It crumbles and breaks with the slightest encouragement, and the small pieces are often useful for sharpening up the edges, or touching in the brightest light.

Drawing with Coloured Chalks
Coloured chalks are very simple mediums. Often the baby begins with a box of coloured chalks as a step toward the colour-box.

Chalk does not trickle about the paper like water-colour, and is, moreover, in very direct medium.

A red berry demands red chalk; a blue bead demands blue chalk; a skein of mixed silk or wool of blue, green, and yellow demands blue, green, or yellow chalk.

By placing yellow against blue, or blue against green, or red against brown, we obtain a degree of shading, a mixing of tints, which teaches us to blend our colours. Chalks should not be applied to the paper too heavily, but laid on with a light touch. There is no need to point the chalks. By rolling the chalk in the fingers we can usually find a sharp little edge. Rub the chalk on a piece of waste paper, and on one side only; that will give a flattened side for sharp and decided drawing.

Drawing with the Brush
Drawing with the brush is more difficult than with the pencil, but you should accustom yourself to the use of both.

It is far better to paint a picture from the very beginning with a brush. Drawing first with a pencil and then with a brush necessitates changing one's tool, and readjusting one's mind. We look at a model, pencil in hand, very differently from the way we regard the same object when holding a brush.