many brick courses to the foot, that the clapboards are laid just so many inches to the weather, that there are just so many mouldings in the belt course,—­that everything in general is very, very mathematical.  This is not because his point of view is too big, but because it is too small.  He who sees so much never by any chance sees the whole building.  Let him try to think broadly of things.  Even should he succeed in forgetting some of these factitious details, the result will still be stiff enough, so hard is it to re-adjust one’s attitude after manipulating the T-square.  I strongly recommend, as an invaluable aid toward such a re-adjustment, the habit of sketching from Nature,—­from the figure during the winter evenings, and out of doors in summer.

[Illustration:  FIG. 44 C. D. M.]

The beginner is apt to find his effects at first rather hard and mechanical at the best, because he has not yet attained that freedom of handling which ignores unimportant details, suggests rather than states, gives interesting variations of line and tone, and differentiates textures.  A good part of the unpleasantness of effect will undoubtedly be found to be due to a mistaken regard for accuracy of statement, individual mouldings being lined in as deliberately as in the geometrical office drawings, and not an egg nor a dart slighted.  Take, for example, the case of an old Colonial building with its white cornice, or any building with white trimmings.  See the effect of such a one in an “elevation” where all the detail is drawn, as in “A,” Fig. 44.  Observe that the amount of ink necessary to express this detail has made the cornice darker than the rest of the drawing, and yet this is quite the reverse of the value which it would have in the actual building, see “B.”  To obtain the true value the different mouldings which make up the cornice should be merely suggested.  Where it is not a question of local color, however, this matter of elimination is largely subject to the exigencies of reproduction; the more precisely and intimately one attempts to render detail, the smaller the scale of the technique requires to be, and the greater the difficulty.  Consequently, the more the reduction which the drawing is likely to undergo in printing, the more one will be obliged to disregard the finer details.  These finer details need not, however, be absolutely ignored.  Notice, for instance, the clever suggestion of the sculpture in the admirable drawing by Mr. F. E. Wallis, Fig. 45.  The conventional drawing of the facade, Fig. 46, is a fine illustration of the decorative effect of color obtainable by emphasizing the organic lines of the design.

[Illustration:  FIG. 45 FRANK E. WALLIS]

[Side note:  Foliage and Figures]