FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145  
146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   >>  
, but our descriptions of the beauty of the scenery had roused him to make another attempt for the "Household Album." Seldom lastingly provided, for his own part, with apparatus of any kind, Jack had a genius for purveying all that he required in an emergency. On this occasion he had borrowed Mrs. Arkwright's paint-box (without leave), and was by no means ill supplied with pencils and brushes which certainly were not his own. He had hastily stripped a couple of sheets from my block whilst I was dressing, and with these materials he seated himself on that side of me which enabled him to dip into my water-pot, and began to paint. Not half-way through my outline, I was just beginning to realize the complexities of a bird's-eye view with your middle distance in a valley, and your foreground sloping steeply upwards to your feet, when Jack, washing out a large, dyed sable sky-brush in my pot, with an amount of splashing that savoured of triumph, said: "_That's_ done!" I paused in a vigorous mental effort to put aside my _knowledge_ of the relative sizes of objects, and to _see_ that a top stone of my foreground wall covered three fields, the river, and half the river's bank beyond. "_Done?_" I exclaimed. Jack put his brush into his mouth, in defiance of all rules, and deliberately sucked it dry. Then he waved his sketch before my eyes. "The effect's rather good," I confessed, "but oh, Jack, it's out of all proportion! That gate really looks as big as the whole valley and the hills beyond. The top of the gate-post ought to be up in the sky." "It would look beastly ugly if it was," replied he complacently. "You've got a very good tint for those hills; but the foreground is mere scrambling. Oh, Jack, do finish it a little more! You would draw so nicely if you had any patience." "How imperfectly you understand my character," said Jack, packing up his traps. "I would sit on a monument and smile at grief with any one, this very day, if the monument were in a grove, or even if I had an umbrella to smile under. To sit unsheltered under this roasting sun, and make myself giddy by gauging proportions with a pencil at the end of my nose, or smudging my mistakes with melting india-rubber, is quite another matter. I'm off to Eleanor. I've got another sheet of paper, and I think trees are rather in my line." "I _thought_ my block looked smaller," said I, rapidly comparing Jack's paper and my own, with a feeling for size
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145  
146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   >>  



Top keywords:
foreground
 

monument

 

valley

 
beastly
 

replied

 

complacently

 

matter

 

Eleanor

 

rapidly

 

smaller


comparing

 
effect
 

sketch

 
feeling
 
confessed
 

thought

 

proportion

 

looked

 

melting

 

gauging


packing

 

character

 

imperfectly

 

proportions

 

understand

 
umbrella
 

unsheltered

 

roasting

 

patience

 

smudging


scrambling

 

mistakes

 
nicely
 

pencil

 

finish

 

rubber

 

effort

 

hastily

 

stripped

 

brushes


pencils
 
supplied
 

couple

 

sheets

 

enabled

 
seated
 

materials

 
whilst
 
dressing
 

Household