Most of the drawings by the author reproduced in this book are done in this medium.  For drawings intended to have a separate existence it is one of the prettiest mediums.  In fact, this is the danger to the student while studying:  your drawing looks so much at its best that you are apt to be satisfied too soon.  But for portrait drawings there is no medium to equal it.

Additional quality of dark is occasionally got by mixing a little of this red chalk in a powdered state with water and a very little gum-arabic.  This can be applied with a sable brush as in water-colour painting, and makes a rich velvety dark.

It is necessary to select your paper with some care.  The ordinary paper has too much size on it.  This is picked up by the chalk, and will prevent its marking.  A paper with little size is best, or old paper where the size has perished.  I find an O.W. paper, made for printing etchings, as good as any for ordinary work.  It is not perfect, but works very well.  What one wants is the smoothest paper without a faced and hot-pressed surface, and it is difficult to find.

Occasionally black chalk is used with the red to add strength to it.  And some draughtsmen use it with the red in such a manner as to produce almost a full colour effect.

Holbein, who used this medium largely, tinted the paper in most of his portrait drawings, varying the tint very much, and sometimes using zinc white as a wash, which enabled him to supplement his work with a silver-point line here and there, and also got over any difficulty the size in the paper might cause.  His aim seems to have been to select the few essential things in a head and draw them with great finality and exactness.  In many of the drawings the earlier work has been done with red or black chalk and then rubbed down and the drawing redone with either a brush and some of the chalk rubbed up with water and gum or a silver-point line of great purity, while in others he has tinted the paper with water-colour and rubbed this away to the white paper where he wanted a light, or Chinese white has been used for the same purpose.

[Sidenote:  Black Conte and Carbon Pencil.]

Black Conte is a hard black chalk made in small sticks of different degrees.  It is also put up in cedar pencils.  Rather more gritty than red chalk or charcoal, it is a favourite medium with some, and can be used with advantage to supplement charcoal when more precision and definition are wanted.  It has very much the same quality of line and so does not show as a different medium.  It can be rubbed like charcoal and red chalk and will spread a tone over the paper in very much the same way.

Carbon pencils are similar to Conte, but smoother in working and do not rub.

[Sidenote:  White chalk.]

White chalk is sometimes used on toned paper to draw the lights, the paper serving as a half tone while the shadows and outlines are drawn in black or red.  In this kind of drawing the chalk should never be allowed to come in contact with the black or red chalk of the shadows, the half tone of the paper should always be between them.