Look out first for the character of the disposition of the features, note the proportions down an imagined centre line, of the brows, the base of the nose, the mouth and chin, and get the character of the shape of the enclosing line of the face blocked out in square lines.  The great importance of getting these proportions right early cannot be over-emphasised, as any mistake may later on necessitate completely shifting a carefully drawn feature.  And the importance of this may be judged from the fact that you recognise a head a long way off, before anything but the general disposition of the masses surrounding the features can be seen.  The shape of the skull, too, is another thing of which to get an early idea, and its relation to the face should be carefully noted.  But it is impossible to lay down hard and fast rules for these things.

Some artists begin in point drawing with the eyes, and some leave the eyes until the very last.  Some draughtsmen are never happy until they have an eye to adjust the head round, treating it as the centre of interest and drawing the parts relatively to it.  While others say, with some truth, that there is a mesmeric effect produced when the eye is drawn that blinds one to the cold-blooded technical consideration of a head as line and tone in certain relationships; that it is as well to postpone until the last that moment when the shapes and tones that represent form in your drawing shall be lit up by the introduction of the eye to the look of a live person.  One is freer to consider the accuracy of one’s form before this disturbing influence is introduced.  And there is a good deal to be said for this.

Although in point drawing you can, without serious effect, begin at any part that interests you, in setting out a painting I think there can be no two opinions as to the right way to go about it.  The character of the general disposition of the masses must be first constructed.  And if this general blocking in has been well done, the character of the sitter will be apparent from the first even in this early stage; and you will be able to judge of the accuracy of your blocking out by whether or not it does suggest the original.  If it does not, correct it before going any further, working, as it were, from the general impression of the masses of the head as seen a long way off, adding more and more detail, and gradually bringing the impression nearer, until the completed head is arrived at, thus getting in touch from the very first with the likeness which should dominate the work all along.

[Illustration:  Plate LI.

SIR CHARLES DILKE, BART.

From the drawing in the collection of Sir Robert Essex, M.P., in red conte chalk rubbed, the high lights being picked out with rubber.]