ON SKETCHING AND PAINTING UNDER THE ORDINARY
DIFFICULTIES OF TRAVEL.
For artists making a tour of the Lake Districts, the Highlands
of Scotland, or the mountain districts of Wales, every possible
convenience is supplied by the colourmen of London. The explorer-artist
must, however, have recourse to many shifts and expedients.
The talented author of "A Painter's Camp in the Islands" actually
fitted out a little studio on wheels, the front of which was a large
sheet of clear plate glass, so that, whatever might be the weather, he
would be able to paint upon the spot, and with all the truthful reality
that working in the presence of nature only can impart. Every effect of
storm or sunshine on the hills, catching the passing rain cloud while
the shower was still falling, with its misty fragments torn off by the
gale, illuminated by the beauteous rainbow, or lighted up by rays of
sunshine piercing through the gloom; and when such luxurious appliances
can be obtained, and are used, moreover, to so good a purpose, far be
it from us to say a word against them. In fact, we would advise every
one who determines, as he ought, to make his sketches as perfect and
truthful a realisation as possible of the country they illustrate, to
provide every convenience he can afford or carry for the successful
prosecution of his work; regarding them, however, simply as means
towards that end, and casting them aside unhesitatingly when, from the
labour of transportation, they become hindrances instead of helps to
him.
We will suppose, first, that the intending traveller wishes to take
sketches in pencil or in water colours, as occasion may serve, of the
objects of interest that he meets with, he should be provided, as we
have said, with folding sketch-books of folio and quarto sizes, with
drawing paper, white and tinted, cut to their respective sizes. He
will be able to form a tolerable estimate of the number of sketches
he is likely to make in a day, and had better not encumber his folio
with more than a good allowance of paper for the work he expects to do.
Suppose he reckons six or eight sketches, and, allowing margin enough,
takes a dozen sheets--three white, and two each of the pearl, the warm
and cool grey, and the drab paper, putting away at the close of the
day his finished sketches in a case specially provided for them, and
replenishing his folio from that in which he keeps his store.
The preservation of his folio and its contents from injury by rain, by
the dash of sea water, or by other causes, is of the first importance,
and for this purpose he should have a haversack of good stout
canvas--_i.e._, sail cloth--for each; this may be slung by a leather
strap and buckles, but we prefer that the shoulder strap should be of
double canvas 2-1/2in. wide, and that the end, which comes forward over
the right shoulder, when the sketch book is carried on the left side
should pass through a loop at the corner of the haversack, and doubling
back upon itself be provided with points or other means of fastening
it at the required length. If buckles, hooks and eyes, or other such
expedients are used, let them be not of iron or steel, but of plated or
well-tinned material, so that no rust or oxide of metal shall gather on
and rot the canvas.
Let the part which would then hang next the body of the wearer be of
double canvas so stitched with two vertical seams that it may form
three pockets, one large enough for the box of water colours in front,
one in the rear for the japanned or plated water bottle, and the
central sub-divided, so as to carry a few spare pencils, a memorandum
book, to which, if the traveller cares about mapping his route, may
be added, a 6in. scale, protractor, and dividers; in which case he
will do well to add a sheet or two of the squared mapping paper to the
contents of his folio, and two or three sheets of foolscap, with a leaf
of semi-carbonic paper and a H H H pencil for his journal. A third
thickness of canvas will at once form the pocket for the folio and the
front of the haversack; and we would advise that the double strip,
already spoken of as forming the sling, should be sufficiently long to
form also the sides and bottom of the haversack.
The octavo, 11in. by 7-1/2in. folio, will be found very convenient
and handy on boat expeditions, horse or foot journeys, hunting trips,
or when the artist has to carry everything himself, and must diminish
weight and incumbrance as much as possible. In the Australian exploring
trips we were not able to carry any other, and this hangs easily from
the quarter of the saddle on the near side. In Kafirland, we slung
the sketch-book itself (covered with skin to keep off the occasional
rain) by short straps and buckles to our waist belt; and one long
strap, passing over the shoulder to the belt in front, remained always
fast, so that if a sudden movement, either of our own troops or of the
enemy, necessitated it, we could at once throw the sketch-book over our
shoulder, and advance or retreat as requisite.
We would advise, however, that the imperial, 15in. by 11in., folio
should be carried if possible, as it gives so much more space for
detail in landscape or other subjects than can be gained upon the
smaller scale. With the large book the twenty-four tube colour box can
be carried, with the smaller a twelve tube must be taken; and in either
case weight may be economised on short trips by carrying only the lid
that forms the palette with the little divisions that should always be
found along its edge charged with patches of colour; in this case a
slip of tin or copper must be fitted as a temporary cover to the box
left at home.
We do not advise the solid sketch-block for hard service; first,
because it exposes to risk an unnecessarily large quantity of paper,
and next, because, with rough usage, the sheets may become loose, and
cease to be a block. The folio with japanned tin frame, for confining
the sheet actually in use, is the best. It should be made of strong,
light, saddlers' leather, rather than of the flimsy materials; which
serve well enough for lady students a mile or two from home. The
millboard surfaces may be varnished with boiled linseed oil, and
allowed to dry thoroughly. Do not have them covered with paper pasted
on, but with the plain surface of the milled board. We found it very
convenient to mark a scale of inches along the sides of our frame, and
have a movable slip of thin brass fastened upon it by simply bending
the ends round, so as to enable us to draw a truly horizontal line at
any height, and this would be especially useful in mapping, or the
horizon in sea-views.
If a sketching-stool can be carried, it will be found a great
convenience, as, when the artist has to sit upon the ground, to say
nothing of possible unpleasantness from storms or dampness, the eye is
lowered so much that often the grass in the foreground will hide the
greater part of the landscape. The triangular stool, which folds up
into a stick but little larger than a policeman's truncheon, is the
most convenient form. One of the legs may be longer, with a couple of
cross-bars, on which to rest the sketch-book; or such a convenience may
be made with a couple of thumb-screws to slip on when required.
In sketching a landscape it is of great importance to decide, first,
what you intend to make the principal object, and how much in the way
of accessory you can include beside it. About sixty degrees, or the
sixth-part of a circle, is all that can be seen horizontally, without
moving the head, and about forty vertically, and this may be roughly
estimated by holding up the hands like blinkers on each side of the
face, and observing where they shut off the view. Photographers have a
little frame made specially for this purpose, and the artist may, by
opening the frame of his folio, and holding it nearly at arm's length,
see how much of the landscape it includes. It must also be remembered
that no one looking at a landscape can see the spot he stands on; and,
therefore, if it is desired that this spot shall be the foreground,
he must retire, say ten or fifteen yards, so as to bring it within
the limit of his vision. In practice, however--when, for instance,
he is looking over the edge of a cliff--this might deprive him of
the sight of some of the most beautiful portions of the view, and it
might be better to remain on the edge, leaving a sufficient blank at
the bottom of the paper, and then retiring to sketch the foreground,
choosing such a position as should make its characteristic features
enhance the beauty of the view. It conduces very greatly to correctness
if the bearings of distant hills are taken by compass and noted in
pencil on the upper margin of the sketch, while nearer features are
similarly noted at the bottom--if the estimated distance in miles is
added, this enhances greatly the value of the sketch, as it becomes
then a geographical record, in addition to its merit as a work of
art. Holding up the paper steadily at nearly arm's length, and making
on its upper edge the apparent horizontal distances, and on its side
the heights, assists the drawing very much; and the pencil may be held
up and the distances gauged on it by the thumb-nail, and measured on
the paper. Two knots on the ends of a bit of string, one held on the
pencil, and the other between the teeth, will ensure the measurements
being all taken at the same distance from the eye, which is of great
importance. The angle formed by the side of a mountain may be estimated
by making the pencil coincide with it, and then bringing it down on
the paper. The perspective of receding lines may be found in the same
manner; but care must be taken to hold the pencil in the plane of the
picture, and not let it point away from the observer; the limits being
thus ascertained, the forms may be slightly indicated, and then, after
a steady and searching gaze at the object, firmly, but not heavily,
drawn. When once the paper is indented by the pressure of the pencil,
the line can never be entirely erased; and the surface, once injured,
can never be restored. No line should be made at random; be the touches
few or many, each should definitely represent some form. The merest
outline accurately sketched upon the spot is preferable to any amount
of indefinite filling up, which the artist had better leave to his own
imagination, assisted by memory and a faithful sketch, when he finishes
his picture.
In a pencil sketch, little notes, indicating the nature of the soil,
the foliage, the colour or condition of the water or the clouds, may be
neatly written in, in such a manner that, unless on close inspection,
they blend into the forms of the objects, and rather assist the drawing
than detract from its appearance: for instance, the word rocks may
run alongside the shadow of a fissure, and their kind or colour--red,
grey, basalt, or sandstone, &c.--grass, sandy plain, water, dark
clouds, cumuli or light cirri, accidental or cast shadows, or gleams
of light, are all worthy of notice; while the direction of a river may
be indicated by a small arrow-head. It may also be enough if several
objects of a kind are together, as a crowd of men, a herd of animals,
or a flotilla of small vessels, to draw one or more carefully and
simply indicate the position of the rest. If there is time, a few
touches of colour on the principal parts--say the grey of distant
hills and the stronger tints of the nearer ones in flat washes. If a
sketch is to be finished in colour on the spot, the outlines should be
made as before, with the greatest care; but no time should be wasted
in attempting to shade or finish with the pencil. If the paper is of a
light pearl or a warm grey tint, so that Chinese white will tell upon
it, it will be less dazzling to the eye when reflecting the rays of a
vertical sun; but it must be remembered that all tinted grounds impart
their own character to the work, and, if strict fidelity is sought,
nothing but pure white paper, with a sufficient grain or texture to
take the colour well, and to give that slight broken uncertainty of
touch which is of so much advantage in foliage or rough surfaces,
and yet sufficiently fine to admit of the most delicate manipulation
where it is required. The right side of the paper is that on which the
maker's name, pressed into its texture, is properly seen; and, if the
sheet is cut, each piece that does not include some portion of this
should be marked with an "R" on the right side, to prevent mistake.
The pencil sketch being completed, wet the paper all over with your
largest brush filled with pure water--this somewhat softens, while it
fixes the pencil lines, and disposes the paper to receive colour more
readily. Take up with the half-dried brush any drops of water that may
hang under the edge of your sketching frame, which should, of course,
be perfectly clean. Determine now what parts of your picture are to be
white, or of pure and unmixed blue, and then, with the large brush,
pass a very faint tint of pale orange over all the rest.
The three primitive colours, red, blue, and yellow, in their greatest
obtainable purity, should now be placed on the pallette, which ought to
be clean, and if possible unencumbered by other colours. Suppose you
have Indian yellow, carmine, and cobalt. With a little diluted cobalt
wash in the clear blue spaces in the sky, carrying a tint downward on
any part of the ground in which grey is to predominate, so as to impart
depth of colour as speedily as possible, and reduce the distracting
effect of the white paper as seen in opposition to the parts you are
painting; if the lights on the clouds are to be pure white, form a
grey with a little cobalt and carmine and paint their shadow sides,
then with a clean half dry brush soften the harshness of the edges,
and reduce them to the form you wish, bearing in mind that the more
correctly and evenly you can lay the edge of the original wash, and
the less it wants re-touching the better for your picture. If the sky
is to be cloudless, turn the picture bottom up, take a very faint wash
of cobalt and carmine and lay it along the horizon, letting the lower
edge hang full and wet, so as to give you time to work on it before it
dries, and yet not so full as to run down in a drip, and so produce
unequal lines across the sky; then take up a little pure cobalt and
wash in another line of colour a little deeper than the first, the
wet edge of which will run imperceptibly into your second line, and
thus in succession keep working in lines of deeper blue, until by an
imperceptive gradation you reach the zenith. If sunset or sunrise is to
be represented, keep a pure white space for the sun, round this lay a
wash of Indian yellow, round this another of carmine, and beyond this
another of cobalt with a little carmine in it, keeping the picture
still reversed, so that in graduating the tints the most brilliant
colours may run into those that are less so--as the yellow into the red
and the red into the blue, rather than that the colder colours should
run into the warm, and thus impair their purity. The sun may then be
tinted as required, remembering always that the source of light must
be brighter than the atmosphere through which it shines--though, if
the sun be setting in a bank of cloud or haze, great effect may be
gained by painting it of a deep and lurid red; while its clear and
nearly white light shines on the light clouds in the zenith above the
influence of the haze.
Calm water will reflect the colour of the sky according to the angle at
which it is viewed; if you look down on it, it will reflect the dark
blue of the zenith, but at the same time, if it be transparent, it
will also transmit the broken colours of the ground beneath, and thus
many beautiful effects are produced--the yellow sand of the tropics
imparting a brilliant green to the shallow sea, while rocks or sea-weed
will give rich tones of brown. If the spectator is low down, the water
will reflect the colour of the horizon, and its own local colour will
be lost or much diminished; the reflection of objects on its banks will
also appear more perfectly in proportion to its stillness; but never
fall into the error of making the reflection an inverted facsimile
of the real object--it is in reality an image as seen from the level
of the water at a point midway between the spectator and the object.
Get a good photograph showing a reflection, or lay a looking-glass
horizontally and place an object on it, and you will see at once what
we mean.
The distant hills may either melt into the soft tints of the sky,
partaking of roseate light and faint sky shadow, or may rise cold and
dark against a clear horizon, or may be shown in full light against
a heavy storm cloud; in any case, the tone of colour proper to their
respective distances must be preserved, and in this respect there can
be no better rule than to copy those that nature herself presents.
Objects in the middle distance will be more strongly coloured; and if
any particular object be selected as the subject of the landscape,
the attention should be directed to this, and the remainder made
subservient to it, by having somewhat less finish bestowed upon them.
Fix the eye steadily upon the chosen object, and observe how all detail
becomes indistinct towards the limits of the vision, and then in like
manner, having worked up the detail around the centre of interest, let
the colours become a little fainter, and the work less definite toward
the corners of your sketch. In foliage, take the lightest tint, say
Indian yellow and French blue, or Prussian blue toward the foreground
where intense green is required, and lay in the masses, keeping the
forms large and broad, and blending a little more blue with the parts
that are to represent the farthest side of the tree; then, when this
is dry, take a darker tint and somewhat more minutely represent the
forms of those portions that take the middle tint or local colour;
and lastly, take a third for the deeper shadow, strengthening this
with touches of rich warm brown or cool grey as you wish the masses to
advance or to retire. Even pure crimson may be used with advantage as a
shadow to cool clear green in the foreground; in like manner the proper
shadow for a yellow sandhill on a beach is not a deeper yellow, but a
cool purplish grey, composed of the complementary colours blue and red.
To give some idea of the work that may be done with three well-chosen
colours, we append the following list, which might be much enlarged:--
{ Yellow and red produce orange.
Primaries { Yellow and blue, green.
{ Red and blue, purple.
{ Orange and green, citrine.
Secondaries { Orange and purple, russet.
{ Purple and green, olive.
When the eye is fatigued by looking at one of the brilliant primary
colours it seems to relieve itself by seeing the secondary colour which
is complementary to it: thus if we have looked at red--say at a red
light--for some time, and turn the eye away we shall see a green one
of the same size and form, being seen in fact by that portion of the
eye only that has been fatigued by the strong impression of the red.
If we have looked at a yellow light we shall behold a purple image,
because this is composed of the other two colours; blue and red is
complementary to yellow. Blue, being a cool colour, does not so much
fatigue the eye; hence, though by the foregoing rule we ought to see
its image in bright orange, in practice we rarely do so. From these
facts we learn that, whenever one of the primary colours is used in a
picture, the complementary colour formed of the other two ought to be
placed not very far from it, so as agreeably to relieve the eye. In
most cases the landscape actually being copied will afford sufficient
facility for this; sometimes it will not; but these instances are
exceptional, and probably will occur in the snow wastes of the north,
on the solitude of the ocean, or in the sandy deserts of the tropics,
where drear monotony or wild and terrific grandeur constitute the charm
of the picture, and fidelity rather than pleasing composition must be
the artist's aim.
We subjoin also a few combinations of colour which will be found useful
in landscape painting:
Aerial tints for skies, clouds, and distance: for very delicate
preparatory wash, cadmium yellow and rose madder; strong ditto, Indian
yellow and carmine; neutral ditto, yellow ochre and brown madder; still
darker and less aerial, light red, Venetian red, or Indian red. Cobalt
for delicate blue skies; French ultramarine for stronger. Cobalt and
rose madder for delicate cloud tints. For golden sunsets: aureolin,
gamboge, lemon yellow, cadmium yellow, Indian yellow, yellow ochre--to
be used according to the brilliancy or depth of colour required, and
to be contrasted by cool greys composed of cobalt and rose madder, or
French ultramarine. Crimson sunsets: rose madder, carmine, crimson
lake, Indian red, purple madder, contrasted with cool grey; and
sometimes greenish tones formed by adding a little yellow to the blue
and red.
In dark storm clouds, French blue or indigo, with light red, Venetian
red, or Indian red, or purple madder. Indigo and Prussian blue require
great caution in their use. With any of the beforementioned yellows,
they form rich greens for sea tints or foliage; with raw sienna or
burnt sienna, they give very deep greens for stormy seas or heavy
forest trees. Light red and Prussian blue give a greenish grey. Light
red with cobalt or ultramarine give greys somewhat less aerial for
middle distance, mountains, &c. Indian red, with the same blues,
gives a more opaque grey. Sepia and French blue make a cool grey;
raw and burnt sienna are good colours for autumnal foliage, stems of
trees where grey is not required, rocks, Dutch galliots, and many
other foreground objects; brown madder and vandyke brown afford great
depth for foreground shadows. For native complexions, raw sienna with
a little of the burnt will give the colour of a Hottentot. A Kafir
requires burnt sienna in the half tints, vandyke brown in the shadows,
and a cool grey like the reflection of the sky in the lights--this is
best produced by a little Chinese white and cobalt laid on thin over
the brown. There may be a little blue put into the black of the hair to
contrast the better with the brown skin. For a Negro, crimson lake and
blue-black; the lights made with Chinese white and blue as before.