November, 1907 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



429 



Neighboring Farmers Cheerfully Lend Their Animals for Models 



ping gently to a brook such as Tennyson would have loved 

 to describe. And round about are old tumble-down barns 

 and outhouses with all the paraphernalia ot an ancient Eng- 

 lish farmhouse. 



Out in these gardens and lawns you will see groups of 

 well-born girls and women seated at their easels, palette in 

 hand, painting assiduously; an old patient plow horse acting 

 as model, with perhaps a picturesque rustic astride his back. 

 In showery weather the pupils assemble in one of the old 

 barns, and here horses, 

 cows and peasants are 

 brought as living models. 



Neighboring farmers 

 cheerfully lend donkeys, 

 goats, pigs and other ani- 

 mals, well knowing they 

 will be taken care of and 

 well fed and petted by the 

 students. The life of the 

 student is certainly an ideal 

 one. There are but two 

 classes a day, one in the 

 morning and the second in 

 the afternoon ; and for the 

 rest, ardent students roam 

 at will sketching the many 

 choice "bits" which abound 

 in every direction. For in- 

 stance, there are quaint old 

 mills driven by wind or 

 water which were here in 

 days when Raleigh was 

 Elizabeth's favorite. There 

 are beautiful hills crowned 

 with woods and flanked 

 with wheat fields, picked 

 out with scarlet poppies. 



The open-air art school 

 is, in short, a kind of sum- 

 mer club for girls; but their 



devotion to their artistic 

 labors is most noticeable. 

 Mr. Calderon assures me 

 he has the greatest difficulty 

 in inducing his pupils to 

 take a holiday or rest at all. 

 Sometimes they will sit 

 under big lawn-sunshades 

 or parasols for three or 

 four hours at a stretch, 

 sketching a rustic milkmaid 

 milking a cow on the sward 

 beneath a giant oak. 



There is nothing arti- 

 ficial about the composition 

 of such' a picture ; for you 

 have but to walk away 

 from this most interesting 

 of schools' to the farmhouse 

 over the hill and you will 

 see similar "compositions" 

 at every t u r n, with no 

 thought of art at all. The 

 only animals taken down 

 from London are the dogs, 

 of which Mr. Calderon has 

 an immense collection, 

 ranging from Russian 

 wolfhounds to tiny 

 lapdogs, such as fine ladies 

 take with them when driving in the park. 



"Learn to draw from the living model at once" is the 

 rule. "Cultivate your memory; do not lose sight of your en- 

 thusiasm, and refrain from working when It goes against 

 the grain. And do not attempt to paint until you have 

 learned to draAV." Couture, the F'rench painter, used to say, 

 "Look for five minutes at your model and one at your draw- 

 ing." This Is the golden rule borne in mind at all these 

 open-air art schools of the Old World. 



Groups of Girls and Women Seated at Their Easels Painting Assiduously 



