certain maturity, more of expression than anything. She has been given some good diamond bracelets and nothing else. If there had not been two large roses, she would probably have worn some pearls or at least a diamond brooch. All these alterations have taken place on the tracing you have made ; the original sketch remains unaltered. You must now use your rubber on the amended tracing so that only a faint outline remains, and now you are ready to use your brush.
For this (and the other drawings in this book by me) I have used Newman's lamp black Gouache, but Winsor and Newton's Process Black would have done just as well, or any Process Black by a good maker. It is best to mix a pool of very dark wash in one saucer, and in another a medium wash. These two, supplemented by a dip in the pot or in the water jar, should be enough. The first line to be done was her right cheek, which runs down in an almost continuous line to her elbow, but not quite, because it was best to break it where the shoulder comes in front of the body, and where the lower edge of the cape sticks out ever so slightly over the arm. The hair is done as a mass without outline, the brush being guided here, as elsewhere, by the faint pencil outline. There are many places in a drawing of this kind where it is not necessary to put in an outline, the chiffon cape, for example, being suggested by a wash only, except where its edge is also that of the arm ; while folds are indicated sometimes by a line and sometimes by a break in the wash. Do not put a line round the two roses, which are better expressed by discontinuing the tone of the dress. The bracelets will sparkle more if they are not too defined.
In order not to distract the attention from the variations in the figures themselves it has seemed best to do them without backgrounds of any kind ; but a figure like this one, done in wash, would be painted in conjunction with its background which, however faint it might be, would certainly show up dark, in places, against the white of the woman's skin. In such a place, the background and figure being painted at the same time, the tone of the former would be sufficient to indicate the edges of the flesh, and no outline would be necessary. Thus, for example, a white dress could be suggested, very largely, by the darkness of the background, and only an occasional touch of outline would be needed to give the edge additional sharpness.
In the present example the mass of the dress was washed in first, a tone which survives in the finished drawing only in the inserted strip of chiffon down the front. This being dry, the lace (heavy and dull in this case) was put in. The rather common mistake, somewhat noticeable here, of starting a little carefully and timidly at the top and getting bolder and freer towards the bottom, could have been avoided by practising doing the lace on another piece of paper first. The strip of plain insertion down the front was simply left, as to have indicated this with a brush outline would have given it the same solidity and
importance as the outline of the figure. When this was dry another thin wash was put all over the dress, except those parts of the cape where there is only one thickness of chiffon. This second wash prevents the lace, by smudging it slightly, from looking too hard, and gives transparency to those parts that are not included, such as parts of the skirt and the edge of the bodice where it pouches. Finally, when this, too, is dry, dark bold strokes of outline are added to the skirt, and one or two folds suggested.
As you get better, you will be able to do things more directly (lace inevitably implies a certain niggling care), with less hesitation, more dash and brilliance. This method, in its perfection, is not one of building up effects too logically, and you must learn to suggest rather than to explain. Variety of edge and outline are its great asset. Even in this drawing of mine, than which you will soon do much better, I have managed to distinguish between where the lace merely ceases (as at the hem or where it joins the chiffon) and where, being draped on a solid body, it disappears round a corner.
The hat (pi. 7, No. 1) that more or less corresponds in treatment with the dress we have just been discussing is drawn with a suitable dress and would probably appear, either alone on a page or with another drawing, over the caption " Black and White return to the Mode " or " Making a Match of it " or " The Importance of Ensemble." The general procedure is the same as with the dress. This particular hat and costume, however, call for a somewhat more piquant arrangement than the rather severe lace dress. The pose particularly adapts itself to this treatment, and care must be taken not to lose its natural easiness when doing a finished drawing. If you are not putting it in a border and are obliged to vignette it (a device that is only tolerable with this kind of treatment) you must not keep the black tone at full strength right down to the bottom of the drawing. As long as part of it is the same tone as the hat, you can start diluting it at about the waist. Do not be too laborious over a point of detail like the loops. To do them in too painstaking a fashion is to make them look stiff and heavy. It is clear, from the part where they are silhouetted against the black, that they are loops and not scallops, and one need not labour the point further.
The great difficulty about this rather sketchy treatment is to find the best way to express details and fabrics simply, a problem which does not exist when a more finished method is being used. While it never does to rely too much on the fact that there is nearly always a descriptive caption, you must realise that in many cases it is best to leave the actual definition of a fabric to the written word. Here, for example, the fact that the hat is made of straw is left to be expressed in the caption, while a somewhat perfunctory account is given of the satin of the bodice.
Very little structural alteration has taken place here, because the model was posed with this particular treatment in view. Her left shoulder has been made a
little sharper, and more like her right, and the hips have been made a little slimmer. The face has been made young and pretty, without becoming common.
Plate 6 (2). Here is the dress treated as it would appear in an advertisement for a shop or store in the magazine in which No. 1 appeared as part of the editorial; or, indeed, in their advertisement in any shilling magazine. The quality of paper on which, and the method by which, it is to be reproduced are the same ; but the object is different, and compromise has set in. Haughty exclusiveness and pretty accessibility are desired, and are somehow combined. An impression of smartness is given by a number of details, irrespective of the dress itself. A fashionable, hairdressers' coiffure, gloves with bracelets over them, a modish necklet, all contrive to suggest a smartness that contrasts agreeably with the moderate, but not cheap, price of the dress.
The figure retains the height of the rough sketch, and becomes slimmer as well. Drawings in advertisements are often done with no background and, even when there is one, it is very unobtrusive ; an outline, therefore, is used throughout. A certain amount of high-light is used on the hair. A single wash is used for the dress and, when dry, the high-lights are indicated by the use of india-rubber. This does not mean that the lace is shiny ; it is merely to show that there is a silk slip underneath, which is included in the price. Finally the lace is put in, rather more lightly than before. Although the dress itself is not a different model from that in No. 1, it is now " in black and a few good colours," and so it is best not to make it too obviously black.
The ideal here has been, first, explicitness and then a kind of dissipated debutante loveliness. This kind of advertisement requires a rendering which is, in a peculiar way, both an exaggeration and a watering-down of the real thing. This type of drawing is very often used on the editorial pages of shilling weeklies of general interest.
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