Page:Pencil Sketching from Nature.djvu/13



ANY assume that to sketch successfully in pencil one need only know how to draw. This is an error. Pencil is a medium and like other mediums—charcoal, water color or paint—has a technique which must be learned before happy expression is possible.

To give some hints as to this technique is the purpose of this pamphlet. It takes for granted that one who would sketch from nature has already mastered the elementary principles of drawing—proportion, foreshortening, perspective—and can successfully translate the relations of three dimensioned space to the flat page of a drawing book.

Upon the knowledge of these principles will depend what may be called, the structural excellence of every sketch. No success in pencil work may be hoped for, until the draughtsman is able to map out with a few light touches the main outlines of his picture and then boldly to draw in the great masses, correct in their proportions and so completely presented that no re-drawing is necessary. The timid and hesitant hand makes a timid and uncertain sketch with wooly lines and scumbled surfaces in place of crisp strokes and even tones made up of lines as broad as brush marks.

A few words may be devoted to pencils and paper. The best of pencils should be secured. The writer prefers the Kohinoor pencil made in Austria, but purchasable in every large city. The practiced hand will use at least five different grades (a 3B, an HB, an H, an F