The Painter in oil

Proportions. - All good work is from the general to the particular, from the mass to
the detail. Keep that in mind as a fundamental principle in good work, whatever the
kind. You should never place a detail till you have placed your larger masses. The
relative importance of things depends on the consideration of the most important first.
Let this be your first rule in drawing.
Proportions next. Largest proportions, then exactness of relative proportions. Study
first in masses. See nothing at first but the large planes. As Hunt said, “Hang the nose on
to the head, not the head on to the nose.” In getting proportions of the great masses, let
no small variations of line or form break into your study of the whole. Therefore, see
outlines first in straight lines and angles. If you cannot see them at first, study to find
them; look at the long lines of movement; mass several curves into one line representing
the general direction of them. Train yourself to look at things in this way. There is
nothing which will not fall into position, so this will not be easy at first. The training of a
quick perception of these things is a part of your training in drawing - the first essential.
It is not that the straight lines are to be sought for themselves, but that they simplify the
first breaking up of the whole into parts, and so makes more easy the study of
proportion. The accuracy of the general masses makes possible a greater accuracy of the
lesser proportion to come within them.
You see form more truly also, when the perception is founded on a mass or a line
indicating the larger character of it. It saves time for you, too. You don’t have to rub out
so much. The great lines and planes once established, everything else falls naturally into
place. Spend much time over this part of a drawing. Cut the time you give to the drawing
into parts, and let the part given to the laying in a larger proportions be from a third to a
half of the whole time, and study and correct these until they are right.
Once these are right a very slight accent tells for twice what it would otherwise, and so
you need much less detail to give the effect.
Modeling. - In the same way that you have laid out the proportions in mass lay out
your Proportions of light and shade. Model your drawing by avoiding the small until the
large variations of shade are in place. Avoid seeing curves in relief as you have avoided
curves of outline.
Try to analyze the modelling into flat planes, each one large enough to give a definite
mass of relief. Don’t be afraid of an edge in doing this. Let your flat tone come frankly up
to the next tone in stop. This again is not for any effective in itself, but only for facility
exactness. Later you can loose it as much as you see fit in breaking up the drawing into
the more delicate planes, and these again into the most subtle.
Study first the outline and then the planes. Constantly compare them as to relation;
you will find it suggestive. Remember that your aim is to produce a whole, not a lot of
parts, and although a whole includes the parts, the parts are incidental.
Measurements. - You will always have to use measurements for the sake of
accuracy. Probably you will never be able to dispense with them. The best way would be
to take them as matter of course, and get so that you make them almost mechanically,
without thinking of it. You will save yourself an immense deal of time and trouble by
accepting this at once; for accuracy is impossible without measurements, and the habit
of accuracy is the greatest time-saver.