ONE:"Never rains but it pours," Bruce smiled as he thrust the notes in his breast pocket. "Tomorrow every penny goes for that wonderful lot of old furniture in Tottenham Court Road. What a pleasant surprise for Hetty!"Ink used in drawing should always be the best that can be procured; without good ink a draughtsman is continually annoyed by an imperfect working of pens, and the washing of the lines if there is shading to be done. The quality of ink can only be determined by experiment; the perfume that it contains, or tinfoil wrappers and Chinese labels, are no indication of quality; not even the price, unless it be with some first-class house. To prepare ink, I can recommend no better plan of learning than to ask some one who understands the matter. It is better to waste a little time in preparing it slowly than to be at a continual trouble with pens, which will occur if the ink is ground too rapidly or on a rough surface. To test ink, a few lines can be drawn on the margin of a sheet, noting the shade, how the ink flows from the pen, and whether the lines are sharp; after the lines have dried, cross them with a wet brush; if they wash readily, the ink is too soft; if they resist the water for a time, and then wash tardily, the ink is good. It cannot be expected that inks soluble in water can permanently resist its action after drying; [83] in fact, it is not desirable that drawing inks should do so, for in shading, outlines should be blended into the tints where the latter are deep, and this can only be effected by washing.
FORE:In shading drawings, be careful not to use too deep tints, and to put the shades in the right place. Many will contend, and not without good reasons, that working drawings require no shading; yet it will do no harm to learn how and where they can be shaded: it is better to omit the shading from choice than from necessity. Sections must, of course, be shadednot with lines, although I fear to attack so old a custom, yet it is certainly a tedious and useless one: sections with light ink shading of different colours, to indicate the kind of material, are easier to make, and look much better. By the judicious arrangement of a drawing, a large share of it may be in sections, which in almost every case are the best views to work by. The proper colouring of sections gives a good appearance to a drawing, and conveys an idea of an organised machine, or, to use the shop term, "stands out from the paper." In shading sections, leave a margin of white between the tints and the lines on the upper and left-hand sides of the section: this breaks the connection or sameness, and the effect is striking; it separates the parts, [85] and adds greatly to the clearness and general appearance of a drawing.
FORE:Of a heavy heart, however, there was not a trace. In the previous chapter I described how beastly they behaved during the destruction of Vis; how the soldiers drank immoderate quantities of alcohol, and then jeered at the wretched refugees; how they indulged in unmitigated vandalism, and wrecked by hand things of which they knew that by and by would be destroyed by fire.
FORE:
