[Side note:  A General System]

It is a common fault of students to dive into the picture unthinkingly, beginning anywhere, without the vaguest plan of a general effect, whereas it is of the utmost importance that every stroke of the pen be made with intelligent regard to the ultimate result.  The following general method will be found valuable.

Pencil the outline of the entire subject before beginning the pen work.  It will not do to start on the rendering as soon as the building alone is pencilled out, leaving the accessories to be put in as one goes along.  The adjacent buildings, the foliage, and even the figures must be drawn—­carefully drawn—­before the pen is taken up.  The whole subject from the very beginning should be under control, and to that end it becomes necessary to have all the elements of it pre-arranged.

[Side note:  Arrangement of the Values]

Next scheme out the values.  This is the time to do the thinking.  Do not start out rashly as soon as everything is outlined in pencil, confident in the belief that all windows, for instance, are dark, and that you may as well make them so at once and be done with them.  This will be only to court disaster.  Besides, all windows are not dark; they may be very light indeed.  The color value of nothing is absolute.  A shadow may seem almost black till a figure passes into it, when it may become quite gray by comparison.  So a window with the sun shining full upon it, or even one in shade, on which a reflected light is cast, may be brilliantly light until the next instant a cloud shadow is reflected in it, making it densely black.  Arrange the values, therefore, with reference to one general effect, deciding first of all on the direction of the light.  Should this be such as to throw large areas of shadow, these masses of gray will be important elements in the color-scheme.  An excellent way to study values is to make a tracing-paper copy of the line drawing and to experiment on this for the color with charcoal, making several sketches if necessary.  After having determined on a satisfactory scheme, put fixatif on the rough sketch and keep it in sight.  Otherwise, one is liable, especially if the subject is an intricate one, to be led astray by little opportunities for interesting effects here and there, only to discover, when too late, that these effects do not hang together and that the drawing has lost its breadth.  The rough sketch is to the draughts man what manuscript notes are to the lecturer.

[Side note:  Treatment of Detail]

Do not be over-conscious of detail.  It is a common weakness of the architectural draughts man to be too sophisticated in his pictorial illustration.  He knows so much about the building that no matter how many thousand yards away from it he may stand he will see things that would not reveal themselves to another with the assistance of a field-glass.  He is conscious of the fact that there are just so