No. 9 is the piquant nose and the painted mouth. The best way to suggest piquancy is not by a snub nose, but by a moderately long one which only turns up at the end. A gay smile is bound to reveal a row of teeth and these are best indicated, as here, by a complete blank. This mouth is patently made up and would do for a lipstick advertisement. The sharpness of the points of the upper lip and the great thickness only at the centre of the lower are points that accentuate the artificiality ; while the finishing touch is given by the fading away of the tone as it disappears inside the mouth. Actually in real life with a mouth in this position you would get a perspective of the lower lip as it got farther away and finally joined the upper lip. This kind of logic is only required in a treatment such as No. 2 ; and so long as you bear this in mind and do nothing, in what you do put in, to make its existence impossible, you had best leave it out.
No. 10 is, in some respects, a profile of No. i, but it has not been kept sufficiently general and looks too much like one woman in a thousand, a fact which makes it unsuitable for this kind of treatment. However, it shows at which points in a profile the colour is laid on hard and thick, and where it softens or disappears altogether. It might well be the same mouth as 12a, only made up to have a romantic appearance.
No. 11 shows two different mouths, but it also shows two different positions. (a) is a serene, proud mouth with a full lower lip, but it is also the mouth in a head held high, (b) is the diffident, demure mouth in a rather drooping head. (a), like all the heads on this page, is top-lighted, (b) is lit from below, as by the glare of snow or a fire.
In No. 12,1 must begin by saying, the mouths are not intended to correspond to those in No. 11. (a) is solemn and undecided, (b) has the amused smile, that, together with half-closed eyes, might appear after a good dinner. What, however, is particularly noticeable is the difference in tension and expression that results when the corner of the mouth is (a) rounded, or (b) extremely sharply pointed. A mouth with rounded corners is simple, unaffected, uncomplicated, childlike, relaxed, (b) is precisely the reverse and is, in particular, under some kind of tension, in this case pleasure being the emotion, (a) is a blank, (b) is not.
When styles of hairdressing are drawn for the shop they are almost invariably done by a highly specialised artist who does nothing else. For magazines they are drawn by any fashion artist who is employed by the paper who, without having any outstanding capacity for it, takes it all in his stride and does it in his usual style.
The artist who specialises in this kind of work is sometimes attached to a particular hairdresser, or else, failing that, always gives the first refusal of his
work to one firm, after which he can take it elsewhere. Such an artist works in conjunction with the hairdresser, calling frequently to learn what, if any, are the new trends of fashion, and he will then execute a number of designs based on those he has been shown. Prices vary and, so difficult is it to find really first-rate artists who can draw hair that a firm will sometimes take a promising beginner and give him a valuable training, without at first paying him very highly. Three or four guineas apiece will be paid for a drawing as good as that illustrated here (pi. 10, No. i). Women are often more successful at this extremely delicate work than men.
The treatment of the hair nearly always exceeds in skill that of the face, while an artist who can do hair like an angel can easily fail with fur. The face must be pretty and aristocratic. Considerable experience, perhaps years of trial and error, is required to do hair as well as it is done in this example, patience and industry alone being inadequate.
A certain amount of the original pencil outline is left and black mixed with a little white is used for the stippling. The broadest high-lights are left, while the secondary lights are stippled in with white. The made-up heads of hair in the shop are often set in rather mechanical-looking waves which must be softened a little in the drawing. But a rich gloss, though to some extent essential, is not sufficient and you must at the same time suggest a lightness and transparency. The hair must be glossy without being greasy, soft without being fluffy. A hard outline must at all costs be avoided, both as a silhouette and where the hair grows out of the head.
If a great sweep of hair all brushed in one direction is far from easy to express, nothing is so difficult as a bunch of fluffy curls, such as those placed at the back of the head in the illustration here. The difficulty is to avoid making a tangle of them, and yet not to separate them like a lot of pebbles strung together. In this drawing there are a certain number of little strokes, almost like hairs themselves and done with body colour, which seem to pick out each little curl from the mass.
The other four treatments are suitable for various types of magazine and method of reproduction. No. 2 is done in pencil (2B) and might do for certain more enterprising hairdressers, but though it has both lightness and shine it completely misses the sense of transparency in No. 1.
No. 3 is a bold wash treatment and is well adapted to illustrate the kind of article which deals with the way certain well-known women are doing their hair. It would reproduce quite well in a daily paper, which Nos. 1 and 2 would not. It suggests the character of a particular head of hair rather than the character of hair itself.
No. 4 is a purely decorative treatment and does not suggest hair at all, but with a complete absence of realism it does give a good idea of a type of coiffure