You will need a ruling pen to rule straight lines in ink, for you have only to try and do this with a mapping pen to know that it is impossible. The man in

the shop where you buy this will explain how to fill and to use it, though it is sufficiently obvious to anyone who has it in his hand. Its use will at last solve the problem that may have worried you, as to the exact purpose of the quill point on the stopper of an indian ink-bottle ; it is to fill the ruling pen. Except in cases where a sketchy effect is aimed at, straight lines must always be done with a ruling pen. You must spend some time practising the use of it, because a knowledge of the principle is no good without experience of all its foibles. Never put a great deal of ink in it, nor use it too wide open. If you want to draw a very thick line it is better to draw two fine ones and join them afterwards with a brush dipped in ink. While a ruling pen is really very easy to use it is surprising sometimes how impossible it suddenly is to make any mark with it at all, even though it is full. The remedy for this is not an angry gesture, which will only dislodge a blob of ink. The pen will never make a line so long as the tip is greasy, and the least contact with a greasy spot on the paper is enough to cause this. When it happens, you can make the ink flow again by wiping the edge of the pen's tip against the ball of your thumb, or indeed any part of your hand. Why this does not at once make it more greasy it is impossible to say, but it is a remedy that never fails.

When you have finished using it for the day, you must clean the pen as carefully as if you were going to perform a surgical operation with it. You can do this with warm water and a rag, but if it gets really caked nothing cleans and polishes it so well as rubbing it hard on a piece of ink eraser, so that it presses right in and the rubber gets well in between the points of the pen.

Of course the use of a ruling pen need not be confined to indian ink ; you can use it with coloured inks, and also with water colour or any easily flowing liquid ; with Process White, even, if consistently diluted. One or two lines in prettily blended colours round a drawing or on the mount will enhance it enormously and may attract a client to your work who would not be so delighted with its quality unadorned ; but don't do too much of this kind of thing. It can annoy.

It is nice to have a pair of compasses with ruling pens attached, for drawing circles in ink ; it is essential to have a pair for pencil.

Indian ink is usually made in two densities. One is sufficiently dense for line work and flows easily on the pen, while the other is considerably thicker and is used where an area of intense black is wanted. You will find the denser quality admirable for every purpose, and it can always be diluted, if it gets muddy through evaporation.

Buy your water colours in tubes always, never in pans ; and do not use poster colours as a substitute. Do not bother to buy an expensive japanned tin box for your water colours. An old cigarette tin will do, and when you want to mix a wash you can use plates, saucers or glazed tiles for a palette; while, to squeeze

your colours out on to, you can buy (for about a shilling) a china palette, consisting of a row of six or eight sloping wells. But for fashion drawing a beginner does not need to have water colours at all.

For wash drawings some people simply use black water colour, and it is very good. I use a lamp black Gouache, that Newman's make. It has one immense advantage of being very soluble in water, and even when it has been used at its densest you can wash it off almost entirely with a sponge, leaving only the faintest tone. Process Black is most commonly used, I believe. I have got some good results lately with Windsor and Newton's charcoal grey water colour, but it is impossible to get high-lights with rubber, with this.

You must please yourself whether you put your tones on with transparent wash (black diluted with water) or with opaque washes (black diluted with Process White). An opaque wash is easier to put on evenly, does not dry quite so quickly and is likely to cover pencil marks and blemishes in the paper, which a transparent wash will not. If you have to put washes over large areas and want your drawing to show through, you must, of course, use a transparent wash. Either is likely to dry a little lighter than it appears when wet. When an opaque wash is dry you can draw lines on it in pencil, but not in pen or with a brush, so if you want to put in folds or details afterwards, and do not want to use pencil, you had better use a transparent wash. Opaque washes are used for large areas which do not require any modulation of tone, while a transparent wash allows of the addition of more black (or of dilution) while you are putting it on ; and, of course, you cannot use rubber for your high-lights on an opaque wash. Examples in this book of transparent washes are pls. 6, 7, 21, 23, 29, 33 and Erickson's drawings : examples of opaque washes on pls. 15, 19, 25, 34, all the background of pl. 13, the flesh and background in pl. 26, and the clouds, tree and skirt only in pl. 39.

It certainly pays to buy good brushes because, if treated properly, they last indefinitely. I know of no satisfactory substitute for sable brushes, squirrel being next best. It is not really necessary, however, to have a sable brush for putting on your very big washes, a camel hair being good enough for this, unless very delicate outlines have to be observed at the same time. You will always want a big brush of some kind, because, when you have finished the drawing and rubbing out and are ready to start painting, you will find that the paper has got rather greasy ; and if you just wash it all over with a big brush steeped in water, your subsequent washes will go on much more easily. A hog hair brush is very good for getting out the high-lights, but a damp sable has a better point.

Brushes should always be washed in clean water when you have finished using them ; they must then be dried on a soft cloth, and the hairs left in their right shape. It ruins a brush to use it for indian ink, so it is best to keep rather a degraded one for this.

Always have plenty of rag and clean blotting paper by you when you are working.

Fashion Drawing Sections

Part-1 Part-2 Part-3 Part-4