Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-10-15
MAKING FASHION PLATES.
A Kind Of Art That Supplies Living
to Young Girl Artists.
From the New York Sun.

From the New York Sum-
A girl who paints watercoler heads very
we'll, but does not always get orders for
them, paints heads for fashion plates in
the intervals of waiting. 1t Is very easy
and not uninteresting. She works In one OF
the many establishments in New York where
the making of fashion plate pictures goes
on those pictures of the swishing skirts
and the delicate draperies that are scat
tered broadcast over the country. This IS
excellent artist visits the openings, wher-
ever they are held. She carries with her
surreptitiously little pad about the size
of her palm and pencil She studies a
gown takes out her pad and jOtS down her
notes of 1t before watchful eyes can see her.
Or If the fates are propitious and nobody
interferes she draws the entire gown IN
miniature. Then she brings 1t back to the
place Of working, which Is. as often as not.
the two parlors of some downtown board
ing house There she enlarges the drawing.
There are sometimes other girls In the
same room with her; but oftener the girl
who paints the heads and this particular
artist who does the original sketch from
the real gown sit in the front room alone;
as, being superior artists, by rights they
should. Then in the next room gather the
others, ten or a dozen of them, copying the
first sketch. One, nimble with her pen,
inks in the original drawing, another colors
it. another paints in raised splotches which
when finished constitute the decoration of
the gown: another sketches in the lace,
while still another finishes out the picture
with bit Of landscape calculated to give
1t atmosphere.
Then at the two windows kneel girls who
are busily engaged all day long in tracing
copies of the original drawn by the girl In
the front room. If the sun shines, that is
good; 1t brings the lines out better for the
eyes, but If the day Is gray the tracing is
more difficult and hard on the eyes. The
arms, too, constantly raised up to the light
in the drawing room, soon tire. But COM
pared with the drudgery of machine work
1t Is play. While the girl who paints the
she works there only when orders are
scarce, and she must-all sketches are fin
ished in the second room without the head.
No profane hand Is allowed to approach the
task set apart for her. Figures are sketch
ed and painted in old rose. in mauve and in
blue but no face adorns them. That Is left
for the fingers of the genuine artist
When the gown Is quite finished, the col
oring laid on, the decorations touched up
with high lights. and the bit of landscape
added, then Is the picture forwarded to this
girl who sits in a nook of her own by the
front window where the light Is best, paint
ing heads, some with dreamy eyes. blue.
black and brown: some with a saucy look,
gowns TO which they are attached. but all
very beautiful. And the girl does 1t con-
tentedly. too. for she has learned sense. II
this pedestal Is not one of the highest, she
Is set upon 1t. She Is praised. and she has
learned by experience more or less bitter
that 1t is better to do work that Is praised
and paid for, II 1t does seem to partake Of
the everyday work of the W0rk-a-day
world, than to sit In her studio and starve.