contact us | about us | privacy | how to draw blog

The Elements of Drawing by John Ruskin On First Practice Sketching from Nature On Color and Composition SKETCHING FROM NATURE Fig. 20 will give you a good idea of the simplest way in which these and other such facts can be rapidly expressed; if you copy it carefully, you will be surprised to find how the touches all group together, in expressing the plumy toss of the tree branches, and the springing of the bushes out of the bank, and the undulation of the ground: note the careful drawing of the footsteps made by the climbers of the little mound on the left.* It is facsimiled from an etching of * [Fig. 20 is a portion of "Sheep-washing: Windsor from Slough," an unpublished plate for Liter Studiorum: see below, p 109 p. 99. The drawing is No. 880 in the National Gallery. "Salt Hill" was the scene of the Eton "Montem."]Turner's, and is as good an example as you can have of the use of pure and firm lines; it will also show you how the particular action in foliage, or anything else to which you wish to direct attention, may be intensified by the adjuncts. The tall and upright trees are made to look more tall and upright still, because their line is continued below by the figure of the farmer with his stick; and the rounded bushes on the bank are made to look more rounded because their line is continued in one broad sweep by the black dog and the boy climbing the wall. These figures are placed entirely with this object, as we shall see more fully hereafter when we come to talk about composition; but, if you please, we will not talk about that yet awhile. What I have been telling you about the beautiful lines and action of foliage has nothing to do with composition, but only with fact, and the brief and expressive representation of fact. But there will be no harm in your looking forward, if you like to do so, to the account, in Letter III., of the "Law of Radiation," and reading what is said there about tree growth: indeed it would in some respects have been better to have said it here than there, only it would have broken up the account of the principles of composition somewhat awkwardly. Now, although the lines indicative of action are not always quite so manifest in other things as in trees, a little attention will soon enable you to see that there are such lines in everything. In an old house roof, a bad observer and bad draughtsman will only see and draw the spotty irregularity of tiles or slates all over; but a good draughtsman will see all the bends of the under timbers, where they are weakest and the weight is telling on them most, and the tracks of the run of the water in time of rain, where it runs off fastest, and where it lies long and feeds the moss; and he will be careful, however few slates he draws, to mark the way they bend together towards those hollows (which have the future fate of the roof in them), and crowd gradually together at the top of the gable, partly diminishing in perspective, partly, perhaps, diminished on purpose (they are so in most English old houses) by the slate-layer. So in ground, there is always the direction of the run of the water to be noticed, which rounds the earth and cuts it into hollows; and, generally, in any bank or height worth drawing, a trace of bedded or other internal structure besides. Figure 20 will give you some idea of the way in which such facts may be expressed by a few lines. Do you not feel the depression in the ground all down the hill where the footsteps are, and how the people always turn to the left at the top, losing breath a little, and then how the water runs down in that other hollow towards the valley, behind the roots of the trees? Continue to First Sketches

Get all the animals listed on this site in an easily printable format. Also learn how to draw mice, monkeys, butterflies and a phoenix. Instant download. $7. Learn to draw a new animal every week. Enter your email address below and we'll send you a free drawing lesson every week. Email: The Elements of Drawing by John Ruskin On First Practice Exercise One: Shading Exercise Two: Outlines Exercise Three: Gradation Exercise Four: Pencil Drawing Exercise Five: Drawing Letters Exercise Six: Drawing Trees Exercise Seven: Watercolor Practice Exercise Eight: Drawing Stones Exercise Nine: More Watercolor Practice Exercise Ten: Sketching from Nature Sketching Trees Sketching Trees 2 First Sketches Painting Practice Drawing from Photographs How to Draw Quickly Drawing Shadows What To Draw How to Draw Plants How to Draw Plants 2 Three Laws of Drawing Light and Shade Drawing Water Drawing Clouds Color Materials Using the Right Color 24 Essential Colors Mixing Colors Using Colors Color Techniques Color Gradation Watercolor Tints Using Black and White Compound Colors Warm and Cool Colors Draw with Care Composition The Law of Principality Law of Repetition Law of Continuity The Law of Curvature Law of Radiation The Law of Contrast The Law of Interchange The Law of Consistency The Law of Harmony