OUR DRAWING LESSON

Taranaki Daily News, 13 October 1934, Page 21 (Supplement)

OUR DRAWING LESSON

FINISHING THE PICTURES. Last week we saw how to block in the foregrounds to our pastel landscapepictures, and I promised to tell you this week how to finish them. The trees have been blocked In with dark blue. Now work on a nice bright green wherever the foliage looks light, but leave the dark blue uncovered in any shadowed part. This gives an idea of the solid roundness of a tree. If you made it green all over, there wouldn t be any contrast, and it would look dull and unreal. The next thing will surprise you—you must dot the tiniest specks of dark red over bits of the foliage, because red is the “complementary” colour of green. You’ll be astonished to see how this improves the look of your sketch, and what “life” it gives to it. Put in the tree-trunk if you can see it; and if the day is bright, with sunshine dancing on the trees, dot Splashes of brightest yellow pastel over the sunny parts to give them sparkle and brilliance.

Another thing to remember. Don’t try to draw in every single leaf! You’ll make things look frightfully messy and niggling that way, Put the colours on boldly and broadly. Now for the foreground. Suppose you are doing a field, first block it in with light green, then put specks of dullish pink over it, to give the “complementary” colour once more. If the field is entirely sunlit, dot wee splashes of bright yellow all over it, to give the effect of golden sunlight. If it is. in shade, leave out the yellow and put blue instead. This will suggest the shadow very well. Again, suppose part of the field is in shadow, and part in suhlight, you must combine the two methods, taking care to get the shadow in a nice pattern. This is the most satisfactory of all, as it makes the picture much more interesting to have various light-and-shade effects on it. Another attractive foreground has flowers growing in the grass. Draw those nearest to you quite carefully, trying to give their shapes. As they recede, or go away into the distance, smudge them all together more, and concentrate on the massed effect, so that you get whole streaks of red if they’re poppies, or white if they’re daisies, and so on. This suggests distance, and makes our landscape look realistic by leading the eye from the nearer flowers to the further ones, then up to the trees and sky. See what I mean? If you drew and coloured the distant things just as clearly as the near ones, there would be no contrast or depth in your picture. Every thing would look “in a heap” and most unreal. The best exercise I can suggest to make you understand what I mean is to make two pictures of the same scene. One by the wrong method, with no contrast or difference between any parts, and one by the right, trying to get the picture looking as though it were going away, away, into the far distance. Goblin Artist.