15. As soon as you find you can gradate tolerably with the pen, take an
H. or HH. pencil, using its point to produce shade, from the darkest
possible to the palest, in exactly the same manner as the pen,
lightening, however, now with india-rubber instead of the penknife. You
will find that all _pale_ tints of shade are thus easily producible with
great precision and tenderness, but that you cannot get the same dark
power as with the pen and ink, and that the surface of the shade is apt
to become glossy and metallic, or dirty-looking, or sandy. Persevere,
however, in trying to bring it to evenness with the fine point, removing
any single speck or line that may be too black, with the _point_ of the
knife: you must not scratch the whole with the knife as you do the ink.
If you find the texture very speckled-looking, lighten it all over with
india-rubber, and recover it again with sharp, and excessively fine
touches of the pencil point, bringing the parts that are too pale to
perfect evenness with the darker spots.
You cannot use the point too delicately or cunningly in doing this; work
with it as if you were drawing the down on a butterfly's wing.
16. At this stage of your progress, if not before, you may be assured
that some clever friend will come in, and hold up his hands in mocking
amazement, and ask you who could set you to that "niggling;" and if you
persevere in it, you will have to sustain considerable persecution from
your artistical acquaintances generally, who will tell you that all good
drawing depends on "boldness." But never mind them. You do not hear them
tell a child, beginning music, to lay its little hand with a crash among
the keys, in imitation of the great masters: yet they might, as
reasonably as they may tell you to be bold in the present state of your
knowledge. Bold, in the sense of being undaunted, yes; but bold in the
sense of being careless, confident, or exhibitory,--no,--no, and a
thousand times no; for, even if you were not a beginner, it would be bad
advice that made you bold. Mischief may easily be done quickly, but good
and beautiful work is generally done slowly; you will find no boldness
in the way a flower or a bird's wing is painted; and if Nature is not
bold at her work, do you think you ought to be at yours? So never mind
what people say, but work with your pencil point very patiently; and if
you can trust me in anything, trust me when I tell you, that though
there are all kinds and ways of art,--large work for large places, small
work for narrow places, slow work for people who can wait, and quick
work for people who cannot,--there is one quality, and, I think, only
one, in which all great and good art agrees;--it is all delicate art.
Coarse art is always bad art. You cannot understand this at present,
because you do not know yet how much tender thought, and subtle care,
the great painters put into touches that at first look coarse; but,
believe me, it is true, and you will find it is so in due time.
17. You will be perhaps also troubled, in these first essays at pencil
drawing, by noticing that more delicate gradations are got in an instant
by a chance touch of the india-rubber, than by an hour's labor with the
point; and you may wonder why I tell you to produce tints so painfully,
which might, it appears, be obtained with ease. But there are two
reasons: the first, that when you come to draw forms, you must be able
to gradate with absolute precision, in whatever place and direction you
wish; not in any wise vaguely, as the india-rubber does it: and,
secondly, that all natural shadows are more or less mingled with gleams
of light. In the darkness of ground there is the light of the little
pebbles or dust; in the darkness of foliage, the glitter of the leaves;
in the darkness of flesh, transparency; in that of a stone, granulation:
in every case there is some mingling of light, which cannot be
represented by the leaden tone which you get by rubbing, or by an
instrument known to artists as the "stump." When you can manage the
point properly, you will indeed be able to do much also with this
instrument, or with your fingers; but then you will have to retouch the
flat tints afterwards, so as to put life and light into them, and that
can only be done with the point. Labor on, therefore, courageously, with
that only.