Fashion Design Drawing

4. Half-tone, lighter still, occurring between the highest light and the line of shade on the light side of the object.

5. High light, brightest light.

So that the general appearance of the shadowed object would be as follows

A bright light graduating into slight shadow that deepens into the line of shade, to lighten again into reflected light, and fall away into the deep cast shadow, then spreading to a lighter tone around the outer edge.

The shape of the cast shadow will depend on the direction of light. Under certain conditions it assumes the shape of the object casting the shadow, at other times it will appear as a distorted representation.

It will always be darkest against the edge of the object that casts the shadow. The deepest shadow and the brightest light on the object will never be seen on the outline.

The study of a draped arm in Plate 38, Fig. 3, will illustrate the above remarks.

Technical Notes.

The general method of drawing a fashion sketch is either by pen or by brush. If by the pen, or what is generally termed

" line " work, the sketch must be in large bold lines in outline, shading and details to allow for a clear reduction by the block-maker to one-half or two-thirds of the original size. A reducing glass should be used to show how the drawing will look when so reduced. To ensure the lines being firm and unbroken, the sketch should be drawn on a hard surface card, which must be white in colour, with good black Indian ink. If the student is not expert and requires to rub the card too much while sketching, it will be better to rough-sketch proportions and trace to the good card, to prevent the surface becoming roughened for the final pen work.

This process can be printed clearly on even soft paper, such as cheap magazines, catalogues, and newspapers. When the drawing is passed on to the printer it is sent to a block-maker, who photographs it, and by one of his several processes etches it on zinc, or other metal plate, mounting it on a block of wood to finish. This is used by the printer, either directly or from a cast taken from it. Other processes in common use do not require the use of blocks, but the same directions as given above apply here also.

Brush work can be either in strong black fines of even tone or used as a medium for light and shade. When executed in tones of black and white the process is called " half-tone."

The block-maker's procedure is much the same as in the making of line blocks, but differs in the following details.