Page:Pencil Sketching from Nature.djvu/16

 pencil with the unsharpened end in the palm of the hand and gripped close to the end by thumb and middle finger, while the forefinger bears down so heavily that the lead in its stroke "irons" out the paper and leaves a smooth and even line. (See Figure 2). Work of this kind will be found not a little fatiguing when it is first undertaken, half an hour's continuous drawing, leaving the fingers numb from pressure. Such practice however is to be insisted upon. It leads to a virile, forceful line, one which distinguishes the adept from the apprentice hand. Figure 3 shows the woolly surface left by too light pressure, and Figure 4 the "liny" uneven tint due to a failure to keep the whole "face" of the lead firmly pressed upon the paper.

After practice has given facility, the student will find it of advantage to copy some good example of pencil drawing, choosing at first some simple detail and rendering this over and over again until the freshness and directness of the original re-appear in the copy. Especially should this effort be directed toward rendering of masses of foliage, bits of brick work, etc. which so often puzzle the beginner when he is called upon to reproduce them in the field. Excellent examples of this nature can be found in magazines like The Studio, where the pencil sketches of men like E. Borough Johnson, Tony Grubhofer, Charles Cottel, Frank Emanuel and a host of others, are reproduced with striking fidelity.

From a study of these the student will be led to see that the successful sketch largely depends upon the development of satisfactory contrasts of light and dark. Natural contrasts are emphasized and others are created at will by the draughtsman, who seeks rather to suggest the planes of his drawing than to represent them in their true values. Indeed the latter were impossible.