Nature Study
The study of natural form is of paramount importance to prospective designers. Subjects should be selected as season or opportunity permit, not merely from plant and floral growth, but any form available, animate or inanimate that is suggestive of pattern or susceptible of ornamental treatment.
Students in their early attempts in design invariably find convention a stumbling-block, and in making their studies from nature cannot at first grasp the idea that selection should be exercised, and that only those phases which are favourable to decorative results should be recorded. Design is not concerned with facts or exact portraiture so much as pattern, and only those features and attitudes that are suitable should be dealt with. To perpetuate the ugly and unsuitable is waste of both time and energy.