DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18972#0157
LETTER II.]
SKETCHING FROM NATURE.
129
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. The 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
E
SKETCHING FROM NATURE.
129
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. The 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
E