LESSON XXX
DECORATIVE WORK
The student is now in a position not only to draw for fashion papers, but to use his knowledge in designing box covers, book covers, cards, etc., and to draw catchy pictures which may be used for advertising purposes and which will be salable. Publishers will order pictures from sketches submitted in rough form, but the artist's finished work must first be approved.
Sketches are made with a few pencil strokes giving the publisher the ideas. They may be very rough but must have snap and the lines must be drawn as if one knew how. The more sketches one creates of this class the more ideas will come to him.
A composition is good when the main point in the picture is most apparent, all other things being subordinate to it. The given space must be filled in nicely, but not crowded. Keep your point of interest near the center and have the back ground spaces interesting. This may be accomplished by making a variety of shapes and sizes, without having them too different. All parts must pull together for one purpose. Study books on composition. These treat on balance, harmony and tone values.
It is well first to sketch in your ideas very roughly with pencil and practice paper. Take your ideas from decorative pictures, changing the figures and the backgrounds. Start with some selected idea and place lines around it that will fill in the given space; these lines will suggest shapes of objects which may be used for the main idea or for the background.
It is well to draw the figures and the
background before placing the frame line around them. To ascertain just where to place this frame line, make a small hole in a piece of paper, cut the hole round or square and view the picture through it, shifting the opening in different positions. This is called a " finder," and by this method you can find the best place to draw the frame around the picture.
These sketches, when worked out, may be rendered on pencil paper with pencil only, or they may have flat washes of color placed on the parts to be colored.
A finished pen-and-ink drawing should be drawn on bristol board. If the colors are to be given, place them on transparent paper which is laid over the picture, being pasted on the wrong side of the top edge of the bristol board. This will suggest to the publisher the color scheme, although he may change it when reproducing the drawing. Many drawings are sold this way; they are line drawings. Others are sold with the colors carefully worked out on the pictures themselves. These should be rendered on illustration board with wash or tempera colors. They require a different process for reproduction than that used for line drawings. Consult previous instructions for the use of water-color paints, Lesson XIX and XXIX.
Try for good color schemes. Use combinations of colors you have seen, also try new combinations. Try out all schemes on other paper before attempting to color your drawings.
The sketch shown in Fig. 1 was taken from seven different pictures, the figure itself being drawn first (the figure was in underclothes, the right-hand held flowers,