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.

For rubbed work white pastel is better than the ordinary white chalk
sold for drawing, as it is not so hard. A drawing done in this method
with white pastel and red chalk is reproduced on page 46 [Transcribers
Note: Plate IV], and one with the hard white chalk, on page 260
[Transcribers Note: Plate LIV].

This is the method commonly used for making studies of drapery, the
extreme rapidity with which the position of the lights and shadows can
be expressed being of great importance when so unstable a subject as an
arrangement of drapery is being drawn.

[Sidenote: Lithography.]

Lithography as a means of artistic reproduction