lu Cinciful objects, whatever the figure may be, the general form should be first sketched out slightly, that what is found to be amiss may be more easily removed, and corrections more easily made. Estimate as nearly as you can the principal points of the original, and fix dots at proportional distances, disposed at equal apparent angles on your paper ; then draw your lines carefully to them, beginning at the upper part, and working either from the right to the left, or in the con trary direction, according to their tendency downwards. Put in the divisions first, and when these are nearly right, mark in the smaller parts ; then, having got your work alto gether, examine it scrupulously, rubbing it gently with a piece of bread, in order to render the lines inure obscure : revise and correct the whole as often as it may be found necessary. Compare all the parts of the copy with the original, in every direction, first horizontally and then verti cally. from a given point, which may be supposed to be the centre of the picture.
Beginners should make their drawings of the same size as the of iginal, in order to exercise the eye in measuring with exactness ; atler some practice, however, it will be better to vary the size from the original, in order to acquire the habit of estimating distances, that, when combined, will form parts, similar to the whole, as also to the whole mass or general contour.
After the outlines are finished, the learner may proceed to the shadows ; the first lesson should be simple, only indi cating the principal projections. The simplest method of forming these is, by repeated lines nearly parallel to the out line, and as lie advances with more shades, these lines should be crossed by other equidistant lines. This manner of sketching constitutes that peculiar manner of drawing called hatching, a mode very well calculated to give freedom of hand in any style of drawing. The chief things to be at tended to are, that the lines conform as much as possible to the original, bearing all their inflections in the same ratio ; the intersections should not be too violent, nor the lines so strong as to have the appearance of net-work.
In architectural drawing, the shadows are made out by washing or tinting the paper with Indian ink, sepia, or hister, laid on with a camel-hair pencil : this may be done in two di•rent ways; the one is by laying down the shades as nearly in their places as possible, with tints sufficiently dark, and softening off the edges with a clean pencil and water, and when dry, the process may be repeated again, as often as may be found necessary ; the other is by working with very light tints at first, in blotches placed near each other, then blending these by a faint wash over the whole, and when nearly dry, strengthening them by filling up the interstices with other blotches : thus, by repeated blotches, the surface will acquire the degree of tint required in the various parts. This mode
is called stippling, and in the hand of an artist is perhaps the best, at least for finished drawings. in the shadows of any thing projecting from a surface, we shall, for the sake of example, suppose a pole projecting from the surface of a wall, at a considerable distance from it ; the outline of the shadow next to the foot of the pole will be very dark and definite, but in proceeding towards the extremity, the edge becomes more penumbral, and at last, in a very extended shadow, is hardly definite. All shadows are darker nearer to the body than tluise which are more remote ; attached columns and pilasters will throw a stronger shadow than insulated columns upon the wall behind, and the projections of the shadows of insulated columns will be darker, and more defined upon their edges, than those which are placed at a greater distance from the wall, and, again, the middle part of the shadows will be darker than the edges.
The shadow of a plane figure falling upon a plane parallel to it, will form a figure similar and equal to that which throws it, as the shadow of all lines on a plane, parallel to these lines, will also be parallel to the same lines which pro ject them. Besides what has been already hinted above, there is another method, which is excellent for mouldings, particularly when small, viz., to use very little ink in the pencil ; let us, for example, suppose we were to shade a moulding : take the camel-hair pencil with so little ink that it cannot run, or that it will dry the instant it is put on the paper, and run it the whole length of the moulding, upon that part which requires to be the darkest ; then repeat the process in the same manner, by making the tint broader, or to spread farther over ; repeat in this manner, by making the last tint spread over each edge of the preceding, keeping the edges of every tint as straight and parallel as possible, until the moulding has acquired its full variety of tints, so as to represent all the various inclinations of the original surface. If any part appear too light, it is only necessary to go over that part again, touching only the part that is too light. Or, the learner may begin the reverse way, by making the broad tints first, and proceed to make narrower and narrower tints each time.