The Caucasian. (Shreveport, La.) 1900-192?, 1903-04-26
BIG PICTURE AIS.
Painting Them Requires Little Ski Il,
but Implicit Obedience.

Painting Them Requires Little Ski i,
but Implicit Obedience.
When man walking along the side
walk sees another man suspended fifty
feet above him painting a nostril six
feet long or an eyelash five feet long.
the chances are ten to one that the
pedestrian will stop moment to Won
der how the painter, with his face so
close to the picture, can get the exact
proportions of the human face, says
the New York Times. If any one
should tell the spectator that never in
his life until today had the man up
there tried to paint human face, the
information would be received with
laugh of scorn. Yet it is no uncommon
thing for an ordinary sign painter to
be employed to paint a picture of Jim
Dumps or William Penn or any other
face used for advertising purposes.
Why is this? Simply because it is
merely a matter of measurements and
accuracy and requires no artists skill.
The pedestrian on the pavement doesn't
see it, but the whole wall on which the
picture is being painted is laid off into
number of squares, made by inter-
secting chalk lines. The exact spot in
each of these lines where the tip of the
nose or the toe of the foot shall be is
as fixed as is the day for the next
eclipse of the sun.
A visitor asked the head designer in
an outdoor advertising firm if it wasn't
hard to get men skillful enough to
paint these exaggerated pictures.
1.-THE other day" replied the design
er, Il got a man who had never painted
anything but letters in his life to put
a face twenty feet high on a wall. and
he did it as we'll as it could be DONE
Then he showed how the only part
that took any skill was done in his
own office. First he or some other de-
signer drew a small picture, about
quarter life size, on a piece of square
cardboard. When this was done, the
piece of cardboard was divided by pen
Gil lines into sixty-four squares, so that
its form was just like that of a checker
board. This was given to a painter.
and it was told him that each square
on the paper meant one fifteen feet
square on the wall
Then it was easy for the painter to
lay off with colored chalk squares of
the required size on the wall When
he began to paint. he took the design
ers drawing with him. There were
explicit directions as to colors and the
kinds OF brushes to be used. Then it |
was only matter of proportion. If |
the nose occupied half square on the !
paper, it occupied half the correspond |
ing square on the wall, and if the but
ton OF the coat was at the intersection
OF two pencil lines, it must be at the |
same intersection of the chalk lines.
The designer said that it was very
common occurrence for him to send |
one man to finish. a picture that an
other man had begun. Once he had |
three men painting the same figure.
taking turn about until the job was
complete
ITS purely mechanical he said. III
we catch man using his own ideas or
trying to display any originality, we
get rid of him Immediately. Suppose
man took a notion into his head to
try few fancy strokes and we had to
put another man at it the next day.
Wouldn't that picture be a pretty
mess?'' .,.".s: r. .-~.- = ..=e7 .t-1~
The average painter of large pictures
earns about $50 week. A larger sal
airy is very rare. 1t is never hard to
get the man you want, the designer
says, because anybody that is used to
paint brush and can make measure
nents is able to do the work. s....s5 .r.-.I