double-thick charcoal paper, laid in parallel ribs, if I may so
express it, and having sufficient body and tooth to catch and hold the
faintest touch or the strongest stroke of the coal. The gray of this
paper serves as the middle tone of the drawing, the different
gradations of black in the coal giving the darks and the careful use
of white chalks the high lights.
These gradations are obtained by the use of a few simple processes, by
which various textures can be given, starting, for instance, from or
near the foreground, where the grit of the charcoal is used to bring
the nearer details into clear relief, the several larger gradations
and textures giving aerial perspectives being produced by a broad
sweep of the hand, forcing the grit of the coal into the crevices of
the paper, the result being what I may term the _first_ plane or
_nearest_ atmospheric value; the house a square away, if you
please--provided the subject is a street--being the _second_ plane.
Beyond this, farther down the street, is found, it may be, another
house or other object. Now try your thumb, rubbing your hand-smoothed
charcoal into a finer and closer mesh: and for the still more
atmospheric distances down this same street, use next a rag, then a
buckskin stomp, and last of all a stiff paper stomp, each in turn
producing a more atmospheric gray as the distances fade--the last, the
paper stomp, being as soft as a wash of India ink. (See diagram.)
All these you may say are tricks. They are--my own tricks, or rather
use of the means which lay at my hand, which long experience has
taught me to employ, and which any one of you will no doubt better in
your own handling of the coal.
These planes being secured, any light higher than the prevailing
rubbed-in tone can be wiped out clean to the grain of the paper by a
piece of ductile rubber. Any darker dark, of course, can be obtained
by retouching with the coal.
The chalk now comes into play for skies, broad sunlight effects, or
crisp, sparkling lights. The whole work is then "fixed," as I have
already explained, by the use of gum shellac and a common perfume
atomizer.
And with this condensed statement I must bring this my last talk to a
close, remembering as I do that I have been addressing a body of
students who are already familiar with one or more mediums, and who,
with these few spoken memoranda and a finished drawing before them,
will solve at a glance mysteries baffling to the layman.
* * * * *
BY F. HOPKINSON SMITH
FELIX O'DAY.
THE ARM-CHAIR AT THE INN.
KENNEDY SQUARE.
THE TIDES OF BARNEGAT.
THE ROMANCE OF AN OLD-FASHIONED
GENTLEMAN.
COLONEL CARTER'S CHRISTMAS.
FORTY MINUTES LATE.
THE WOOD FIRE IN No. 3.
THE VEILED LADY.
THE UNDER DOG.
IN DICKENS'S LONDON.
ENOCH CRANE. A novel planned
and begun by F. Hopkinson Smith
and completed by F. Berkeley Smith.
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS