“The invaluable training derived from making exact copies of fine drawings has been recognized by great draftsmen from Leonardo to Degas and the practice was recommended to me later by Philip Hale and Paxton.”   -R.H. Ives Gammell from his unpublished autobiography

So, exactly how does one go about doing that?

Raphael, Nude Studies from the Albertina in Vienna, Austria.

First and foremost you must recognize that when copying another’s drawing or painting the goal is to try to get inside the master’s head in order to learn to see nature as they did. Your feelings or impressions are largely irrelevant to this process and if that is not recognized at the outset the exercise will be of little use. It is true that old masters sometimes more freely copied other old masters, Rubens’ copy of Caravaggio’s Entombment is perhaps the most famous example, but these were mainly done as memory aides or attempts at recomposing the scene. Their goal was not training.

Your next concern is medium. The old masters did not have #2 Ticonderoga yellow pencils. They used a variety of materials, many of which had to be made or modified themselves. Sanguine is a good example of this. The stuff commonly available in art stores nowadays is usually in squared stick form and is often full of wax (used as a binder). Of course good art might be created with this but you’ll likely end up fighting the material when doing a copy.

The Raphael drawing highlighted in this post was done in natural sanguine, a red chalk, as is shown below. I was taught to break off shards to achieve a point but Matthew Collins has a great post about creating your own sanguine here which will give you far more control. This image is from Zecchi in Florence.

But this is not to say that you’ll fail if you use something else. In the case of the Raphael and many drawings originally done in sanguine, pencil or even sharply pointed charcoal may work well. It depends upon the drawing. A linear example, like this Raphael, demands a linear copy and therefore a linear medium or at least one that’s treated that way. One could even use a quality colored pencil if the brick-red was of interest. The larger point is that the medium affects the result. Copying that Raphael using wax-laden stick sanguine is asking for trouble.

Paper is also of material concern but from a learning standpoint it is possibly less of an issue than the medium. The Raphael drawing has some weave, enough to slightly affect his ability to smoothly lay down a solid tone. Then again, there are few large areas of smooth tone as this is a linear drawing. I’ll not recommend a brand of paper though, just make sure it’s not student-grade or too rough.

Your source does not have to be the actual size of the original drawing although it might help. This Raphael drawing is around 11″ x 16″ and one could go to the Google Art Project, screen capture and piece together the image to the actual size. Then go to FedEx Office (formerly Kinkos) and get them to print the file.

Inevitably the question of Sight-Size comes up. Copying could of course be done Sight-Size, literal measuring or simply by eye, standing or sitting. The exactness Gammell talks about is what will get you into the mind of Raphael and if you can manage that, exactly, by doing the copy comparatively (a better term would be proportionally, but that’s a rant for another post) then so be it. Just know that if you draw much smaller than your source you will miss some nuances in it. Draw too large and you may be forced to make things up that are not actually present.

At a minimum it is helpful to lightly place marks where the top and bottom of the image will go and also to draw a center or plumb line. It is clear that Raphael did not block in this drawing, like I and others teach when doing a cast drawing. You may of course do the copy that way, just make it very light and be aware that the block in is simply a set of guides. If you prefer, lightly go straight in with the shapes you see, attempting to achieve all of the grace and relationships from the start. That is likely how Raphael did the drawing.

Besides the obvious shape and value aspects the other areas of importance regarding exactness are line variation and shading quality. In the detail images on this post notice how the lines of the contours are somewhat ribbon-like, meaning, they are variously light and dark, thick and thin. Part of the copyists job is to discern why the lines are drawn the way that they are. Are they thick or thin when that part of the body represents bone, muscle or fat? Are they lighter or darker when crossing at those areas? Think about the representation of depth or form, do the thick/thin and light/dark lines have parts to play in representing that?

How about halftones and shadows? Are the shadows drawn in as angled, parallel lines like Harold Speed recommends in his book or do they follow the form? How about the halftone lines, do they crisscross each other or are they more singularly distinct?

Are the strokes sure, or does it seem like Raphael is searching out his way? Was he drawing both sides of the body or a limb at the same time or simply going around the contour? Continually ask yourself these questions and others like them.

Of immense help will be doing your own life drawing concurrent with the copy. Your drawing does not have to be in the pose of the drawing being copied though because learning how an old master represented natural forms is not tied to those forms. It is ultimately a set of principles that you are learning via the copy and after you do enough of them, along with looking at and doing a lot of drawings, these principles will become second nature. Putting into practice what you learn while you are learning it is a sure way to make it a part of you. You’ll stop consciously analyzing what you are looking at and just begin doing it naturally. You will see the object drawn, before you actually draw it.

Finally, remember that line drawing is a construct or a convention. It is a made up representation of the source object because there are no natural lines in nature (other than things like strands of hair). Therefore the artist has to develop a way of using line to represent non-line. Immerse yourself in Raphael, Rubens, Ingres, Degas and Watteau drawings, among others, and learn how each made it up.