[Illustration:  FIG. 26 DANIEL VIERGE]

[Side note:  Breadth of Effect]

Lastly, Breadth of Effect has to be considered.  It is requisite that, however numerous the tones are (and they should not be too numerous), the general effect should be simple and homogeneous.  The color must count together broadly, and not be cut up into patches.

[Illustration:  FIG. 27 HARRY FENN]

It is important to remember that the gamut from black to white is a short one for the pen.  One need only try to faithfully render the high lights of an ordinary table glass set against a gray background, to be assured of its limitations in this respect.  To represent even approximately the subtle values would require so much ink that nothing short of a positively black background would suffice to give a semblance of the delicate transparent effect of the glass as a whole.  The gray background would, therefore, be lost, and if a really black object were also part of the picture it could not be represented at all.  Observe, in Fig. 27, how just such a problem has been worked out by Mr. Harry Fenn.

It will be manifest that the student must learn to think of things in their broad relation.  To be specific,—­in the example just considered, in order to introduce a black object the scheme of color would have needed broadening so that the gray background could be given its proper value, thus demanding that the elaborate values of the glass be ignored, and just enough suggested to give the general effect.  This reasoning would equally apply were the light object, instead of a glass, something of intricate design, presenting positive shadows.  Just so much of such a design should be rendered as not to darken the object below its proper relative value as a whole.  In this faculty of suggesting things without literally rendering them consists the subtlety of pen drawing.

It may be said, therefore, that large light areas resulting from the necessary elimination of values are characteristic of pen drawing.  The degree of such elimination depends, of course, upon the character of the subject, this being entirely a matter of relation.  The more black there is in a drawing the greater the number of values that can be represented.  Generally speaking, three or four are all that can be managed, and the beginner had better get along with three,—­black, half-tone, and white.

[Illustration:  FIG. 28 REGINALD BIRCH]

[Side note:  Various Color-Schemes]

While it is true that every subject is likely to contain some motive or suggestion for its appropriate color-scheme, it still holds that, many times, and especially in those cases where the introduction of foreground features at considerable scale is necessary for the interest of the picture, an artificial arrangement has to be devised.  It is well, therefore, to be acquainted with the possibilities of certain color combinations.  The most brilliant effect in black and white drawing