There is something that makes for power in the limitations your materials impose.  Many artists whose work in some of the more limited mediums is fine, are utterly feeble when they attempt one with so few restrictions as oil paint.  If students could only be induced to impose more restraint upon themselves when they attempt so difficult a medium as paint, it would be greatly to the advantage of their work.  Beginning first with monochrome in three tones, as explained in a former chapter, they might then take for figure work ivory black and Venetian red.  It is surprising what an amount of colour effect can be got with this simple means, and how much can be learned about the relative positions of the warm and cold colours.  Do not attempt the full range of tone at first, but keep the darks rather lighter and the lights darker than nature.  Attempt the full scale of tone only when you have acquired sufficient experience with the simpler range, and gradually add more colours as you learn to master a few.  But restraints are not so fashionable just now as unbridled licence.  Art students start in with a palette full of the most amazing colours, producing results that it were better not to discuss.  It is a wise man who can discover his limitations and select a medium the capacities of which just tally with his own.  To discover this, it is advisable to try many, and below is a short description of the chief ones used by the draughtsman.  But very little can be said about them, and very little idea of their capacities given in a written description; they must be handled by the student, and are no doubt capable of many more qualities than have yet been got out of them.

[Sidenote:  Lead Pencil]

This well-known medium is one of the most beautiful for pure line work, and its use is an excellent training to the eye and hand in precision of observation.  Perhaps this is why it has not been so popular in our art schools lately, when the charms of severe discipline are not so much in favour as they should be.  It is the first medium we are given to draw with, and as the handiest and most convenient is unrivalled for sketch-book use.

It is made in a large variety of degrees, from the hardest and greyest to the softest and blackest, and is too well known to need much description.  It does not need fixing.

For pure line drawing nothing equals it, except silver point, and great draughtsmen, like Ingres, have always loved it.  It does not lend itself so readily to any form of mass drawing.  Although it is sometimes used for this purpose, the offensive shine that occurs if dark masses are introduced is against its use in any but very lightly shaded work.

[Illustration:  Plate LV.

FROM A SILVER-POINT DRAWING]

Its charm is the extreme delicacy of its grey-black lines.

[Sidenote:  Silver and Gold Point.]

Similar to lead pencil, and of even greater delicacy, is silver-point drawing.  A more ancient method, it consists in drawing with a silver point on paper the surface of which has been treated with a faint wash of Chinese white.  Without this wash the point will not make a mark.