[Charcoal and Pencil]

Then we have the ordinary varieties of the firm point: charcoal, pencil,
pen. Charcoal, being halfway between hard and soft--a sort of halfway
house or bridge for one passing from the flexible brush to the firm and
hard points of pencil and pen--is first favourite with painters when
they take to drawing. Its softness and removability adapts it as a tool
for preliminary and preparatory sketching in for all purposes, and both
for designer and painter; but it lends itself to both line and tone
drawing, or to a mixture of both. It is therefore a very good material
for rapid studies (say from the life) and the seizing of any effect of
light and shade rapidly, since the masses can be laid in readily, and
greater richness and depth can be obtained in shorter time, perhaps,
than by any other kind of pencil.

Charcoal is also very serviceable for large cartoon-work, since it is
capable of both delicacy and force, and bears working up to any extent.
A slight rubbing of the finger gives half tones when wanted, and is
often serviceable in giving greater solidity and finish to the work.

Then there is the lead pencil--the point-of-all-work, as it might be
called--more generally serviceable than any other, whether for rapid
sketches and jottings in the note-book, or careful and detailed
drawings, or sketching in for the smaller kinds of design-work. It is
also, of course, used for drawings which are afterwards "inked in." I do
not think, however, that pen-work done in this way is so free or
characteristic as when done direct, or at any rate quite freely, upon a
mere scaffolding of preliminary lines, used only to make the plans for
the chief masses and forms.

Pencil drawing is capable of being carried to a greater pitch of
delicacy and finish, and has a silvery quality all its own. It has not
the force or range of charcoal, but in its own technical range it
possesses many advantages. Its gray and soft line, however charming in
itself, does not fit it for work where sharpness and precision of line
and touch are required, as may be said to be the case with all work
intended to be reproduced by some process of handicraft or manufacture,
except some sorts of photo-engraving or lithography. We must therefore
look to another implement to enable us to obtain these qualities,
namely, the brush, the use and qualities of which I have already touched
upon.