Light and Shade (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1901 Excerpt: ...fact that the use of the stump tends to careless work on the part of the pupil, and also in the fact that separate lines can be reproduced by cheap processes. But as often taught, it illustrates the absurdity of attempting to formulate rules by which light and shade drawings may be made. Center lines.--A common way of beginning is by drawing a center line about which parts may be symmetrically placed. Thus in Fig. 8 the axes of the cone and cylinder would be drawn before any parts of the contours, and in figure drawing a diagrammatic skeleton might be sketched by means of lines representing the center lines of the limbs and the body as in Fig. 31, or a variation of Fig. 31 might be made by suggesting the mass of the ribs and that of the pelvis. Center lines are not usually seen, and those mentioned for the group, Fig. 8, and those of Fig. 31, serve simply to suggest the directions of the masses. The student who draws from nature will obtain the results given by the center lines much more satisfactorily by suggesting, instead of center lines which are invisible and which are often difficult to imagine, the principal contours of the parts; these are visible, no act of the imagination is required to determine them, and the light lines which suggest them are an aid in the completion of the drawing and often will remain in the final effect, while center lines, if drawn, must be erased. Fig. 31. When the student does not draw from nature, center lines will be of great assistance, and the student is advised to draw them. Much pleasure and profit will be derived from the designing of figure compositions in which the figures are represented as in Fig. 31, or by variations of this sketch; but when it is not necessary to depend upon the memory, unnecessary lines shoul...