For the main part of costumes, a fine point is not good; have plenty of lead exposed and do not try to draw with the wood.
When you use an eraser, build as you rub. Erase the old lines often, allowing them to show, and on these indistinct lines make your drawing better. Use a soft rag or feather duster to clean off the specks. After drawing for a time, rest the eye, as the eye becomes stale with close watching. View your picture at a distance, reverse it in a looking-glass, turn it upside down.
A diminishing glass helps in detecting errors.
Learn to criticise your own work, and let others criticise it for you, even if they are not artists. A novice will often see a defect that you have passed over. Be on the lookout for anything that will help you in your study, be it a picture, a book, or gowns themselves.
Learn to trust to your eye, but if you are not satisfied with results, use the following measuring system to true up your work: On a piece of cardboard, one inch by four or five inches, mark off at the top a measurement of the model, say one-half head. Below this mark make another mark the size of one-half the head of your figure. See how many times the first measurement goes into certain parts on the model. Use the second measurement on all corresponding parts on your drawing.
Edith "Young. Newark, N. J., 1919.
DRAWING MATERIALS
For Pencil Work. Drawing board (or baking board); drawing tablet; medium soft pencil (H. B.); soft eraser; thumbtacks; emery sharpener; penknife; soft cotton rag; portfolio; pencil holder; note book.
For Ink Work. Bristol board (plate finish) or pen and ink paper; hard pencil eraser; ink eraser (be careful of its use); two pen holders; two No. 170 Gillott pens; two No. 290 Gillott pens; one stub-pen; bottle Higgin's drawing ink (waterproof); small camel's hair brush (for ink); one sheet of tracing paper; one sheet of blotting paper.
For Water-color Work. Illustration board; sable hair brushes (No. 2 and No. 6); water colors in one-half pans as follows: Yellow ochre, gamboge, (x) indian yellow, (x) rose madder, madder brown, (x) light red, crimson lake, vermilion, orange vermilion, Payne's gray, Vandyke brown, burnt sienna, raw sienna, burnt umber, raw umber, (x) sepia, (x) Hunter's green, (x) Hooker's green (No. 1 and No. 2), ultramarine blue, cobalt, Prussian blue; tin box to hold more than these colors; lamp black (in a tube); Devoe's show
card white (in a jar); Semple's white (in a jar).
There are many more good colors. The colors marked (x) may be omitted for the present. Greens can be mixed.
Useful Articles. Magnifying glass; diminishing glass; T-square; ruler with metal edge; ruling pen; compass; ink compass; art gum (to clean drawings); fixatif (to spray charcoal and pencil drawings); atomizer; small piece of blue glass (to study drawings through); kneaded eraser (for pencil or charcoal work); plumb line; raw potato (to clean pens); crayon pencils, No. 1, 2, 3, B.