Forget brooding oil portraits or dramatic canvases. Most young ladies of the Regency worked almost exclusively in pencil and watercolor. Oils were considered messy, unfeminine, smelly (turpentine!), and for professionals only, never for a gently raised miss (unless she was determined to court scandal).

The subjects considered appropriate for them to paint included:

• Flowers from the garden

• Bowls of fruit

• Landscapes

• The family dog or cat (or bird!)

• Or copies of prints and masterworks

Painting was considered an accomplishment, not a profession, with the works meant to beautify the home, show refinement, and demonstrate patience, delicacy, and taste.

Now, what about her art materials?

Regency ladies would have used heavy, high-quality watercolor paper, not canvases.

• Usually rag paper, made from linen/cotton rags, and prized for durability.

• Often cold pressed or not pressed, slightly textured.

• Sold in bound sketchbooks, loose sheets, or gummed pads at shops.

  • It wouldn’t have been uncommon for a heroine to carry her sketchbook, but it would be filled with thick rag paper, not the flimsy modern sheets we have now.

• Note that the typical stretched canvas we think of was for oil painters, not for genteel young ladies producing floral studies.

Graphite pencils would have been use for sketches, but they weren’t quite the glossy yellow #2 we have today!

• They were called “black lead pencils” but they were actually graphite

• They were encased in wood, metal, paper, or twine.

• The quality varied, but the best came from the Borrowdale mines in Cumberland.

• What these graphite pencils produced would be smooth, soft lines, perfect for shading, not the hard, sharp line of the good old #2 pencil.

• Any young lady learning to paint would first learn to sketch.

Charcoal was used for drawing but rarely by our Regency ladies.

• This was considered messy, reserved for professional artists, and almost exclusively for life drawing, which was not part of a genteel young lady’s curriculum.

• A young lady would only use charcoal to sketch if she was pursuing art seriously and professionally, which would not have been typical, and would definitely be breaking a few gentle-lady norms.