AD^H'^ ^fiii^:lii:ild 



Art, and once this is understood and felt, technique and craftsmanship 

 will follow as a matter of course. 



What a grand, what a great opportunitj- we have before us now 

 in the happy spring-time, when everywhere around bud and blossom 

 are entrancing us with their beauty ! 



" When proud-pied April dressed in all his trim 

 Hath put a spirit of youth in everything.'' 



us be up and doing, and take every possible opportunit\- for 

 Every moment is pre- 



Let 

 study ! 



cious now ; there is so much to 

 do, and the life of the spring 

 blossoms is so fleeting, that 

 procrastination is fatal to our 

 purpose. In meadow and hedge- 

 row, wood, garden, and field, we 

 find our models in rich and 

 glorious profusion. 



Look at this apple branch, 

 for instance ; a splendid stud}- 

 both in drawing and colour. 

 Just lightly sketch in, with faint 

 touches of a soft pencil, the 

 general form of the spray, its 

 direction, and the shape of its 

 clusters of flowers. Now look 

 at the flowers earnestly and long, 

 standing, or sitting well back 

 from your subject, and, with 

 eyes half closed, study the main 

 points of the whole. This will 

 enable you to see where the 

 light falls strongest, and therefore 

 to decide where the principal 

 point of interest lies. In every 

 picture, every study, there should 



be one such point that attracts us first : just as, when we are looking 

 at a landscape in Nature, an interior, a group of people, or anything 

 else that comes within our vision, there is bound to be one particular 

 spot in the composition that arrests our eyes, and therefore chains our 

 attention first. Light is so all-important to our vision that where it 

 falls brightest is invariably the spot to which oiu" eyes are drawn. 



Here, then, is our point of interest, but we 

 must not, of course, make its presence too 

 obvious, or the drawing will look forced and 

 unreal. Let us keep it as broad as we can. 



26 



