24

THE ELEMENTS OF DRAWING. [LETTER I.

touch of the India-rubber, than by an hour's labour
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

LETTER I.]

ON FIRST PRACTICE.

25

the point. Labour on, therefore, courageously, with
that only.

EXERCISE V.

WHEN you can manage to tint and gradate tenderly
with the pencil point, get a good large alphabet, and
try to tint the letters into shape with the pencil
point. Do not outline them first, but measure their
height and extreme breadth with the compasses, as

Fig. 3.

a b, a c, Fig. 3., and then scratch in their shapes gra-
dually; the letter A, enclosed within the lines, being
in what Turner would have called a "state of for-
wardness." Then, when you are satisfied with the