Ruskin, John: The elements of drawing: in three letters to beginners (London, 1857)

letter i.] on first practice. 17

exercise iii.

Meantime, you are always to be going on with
your shaded squares, and chiefly with these, the
outline exercises being taken up only for rest.

As soon as you find you have some command of
the pen as a shading instrument, and can lay a
pale or dark tint as you choose, try to produce

Fig. 2.

gradated spaces like Fig. 2., the dark tint passing
gradually into the lighter ones. Nearly all ex-
pression of form, in drawing, depends on your
power of gradating delicately; and the gradation is
always most skilful which passes from one tint into
another very little paler. Draw, therefore, two parallel
lines for limits to your work, as in Fig. 2., and try to
gradate the shade evenly from white to black, pass-

c