her point of view are not
studied separately, the result is confusion and the "muddling through"
method so common in our schools of art.

VIII

LINE DRAWING: PRACTICAL

Seeing that the first condition of your drawing is that it has to be
made on a flat surface, no matter whether it is to be in line or mass
you intend to draw, it is obvious that appearances must be reduced to
terms of a flat surface before they can be expressed on paper. And this
is the first difficulty that confronts the student in attempting to draw
a solid object. He has so acquired the habit of perceiving the solidity
of things, as was explained in an earlier chapter, that no little
difficulty will be experienced in accurately seeing them as a flat
picture.

[Sidenote: Observing Solids as a Flat copy.]

As it is only from one point of view that things can be drawn, and as we
have two eyes, therefore two points of view, the closing of one eye will
be helpful at first.

The simplest and most mechanical way of observing things as a flat
subject is to have a piece of cardboard with a rectangular hole cut out
of the middle, and also pieces of cotton threaded through it in such a
manner that they make a pattern of squares across the opening, as in the
accompanying sketch. To make such a frame, get a piece of stiff
cardboard, about 12 inches by 9 inches, and cut a rectangular hole in
the centre, 7 inches by 5 inches, as in Diagram III. Now mark off the
inches on all sides of the opening, and taking some black thread, pass
it through the point A with a needle (fixing the end at this point with
sealing-wax), and across the opening to the corresponding point on the
opposite side. Take it along to the next point, as shown by the dotted
line, and pass it through and across the opening again, and so on, until
B is reached, when the thread should be held by some sealing-wax quite
taut everywhere. Do the same for the other side. This frame should be
held between the eye and the object to be drawn (one eye being closed)
in a perfectly vertical position, and with the rectangular sides of the
opening vertical and horizontal. The object can then be observed as a
flat copy. The trellis of cotton will greatly help the student in seeing
the subject to be drawn in two dimensions, and this is the first
technical difficulty the young draughtsman has to overcome. It is useful
also in training the eye to see the proportions of different parts one
to another, th