Foliage and Figures The elements in a perspective drawing which present most difficulties to the architectural draughtsman are foliage and figures. These are, however, most important accessories, and must be cleverly handled. It is difficult to say which is the harder to draw, a tree or a human figure; and if the student has not sketched much from Nature either will prove a stumbling-block. Presuming, therefore, that he has already filled a few sketch-books, he had better resort to these, or to his photograph album, when he needs figures for his perspective. Designing figures and trees out of one's inner consciousness is slow work and not very profitable; and if the figure draughtsman may employ models, the architect may be permitted to use photographs.
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| FIG. 46 | HARRY ALLAN JACOBS |
Unhappily for the beginner, no two illustrators consent to render foliage, or anything else for that matter, in quite the same way, and so I cannot present any authoritative formula for doing so. This subject has been treated, however, in a previous chapter, and nothing need be added here except to call attention to an employment of foliage peculiar to architectural drawings. This is the broad suggestive rendering of dark leafage at the sides of a building, to give it relief. The example shown in Fig. 47 is from one of Mr. Gregg's drawings.
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| FIG. 47 | D. A. GREGG |
The rendering of the human figure need not be dealt with under this head, as figures in an architectural subject are of necessity relatively small, and therefore have to be rendered very broadly. Careful drawing is none the less essential, however, if their presence is to be justified; and badly drawn figures furnish a tempting target for the critic of architectural pictures. Certainly, it is only too evident that the people usually seen in such pictures are utterly incapable of taking the slightest interest whatever in architecture, or in anything else; and not infrequently they seem to be even more immovable objects than the buildings themselves, so fixed and inflexible are they. Such figures as these only detract from the interest of the drawing, instead of adding to it, and the draughtsman who has no special aptitude is wise in either omitting them altogether, or in using very few, and is perhaps still wiser if he entrusts the drawing of these to one of his associates more accomplished in this special direction.
The first thing to decide in the matter of figures is their arrangement and grouping, and when this has been determined they should be sketched in lightly in pencil. In this connection a few words by way of suggestion may be found useful. Be careful to avoid anything like an equal spacing of the figures. Group the people interestingly. I have seen as many as thirty individuals in a drawing, no two of whom seemed to be acquainted,—a very unhappy condition of affairs even from a purely pictorial point of view. Do not over-emphasize the base of a building by stringing all the figures along the sidewalks. The lines of the curbs would thus confine and frame them in unpleasantly. Break the continuity of the street lines with figures or carriages in the roadway, as in Fig. 55. After the figures have been satisfactorily arranged, they ought to be carefully drawn as to outline. In doing so, take pains to vary the postures, giving them action, and avoiding the stiff wooden, fashion-plate type of person so common to architectural drawings. When the time comes to render these accessories with the pen (and this ought, by the way, to be the last thing done) do not lose the freedom and breadth of the drawing by dwelling too long on them. Rise superior to such details as the patterns of neckties.
We will now consider the application to architectural subjects of the remarks on technique and color contained in the previous chapters.
Architectural Textures To learn to render the different textures of the materials used in architecture, the student would do well to examine and study the methods of prominent illustrators, and then proceed to forget them, developing meanwhile a method of his own. It will be instructive for him, however, as showing the opportunity for play of individuality, to notice how very different, for instance, is Mr. Gregg's manner of rendering brick work to that of Mr. Railton. Compare Figs. 48 and 49. One is splendidly broad,—almost decorative,—the other intimate and picturesque. The work of both these men is eminently worthy of study. For the sophisticated simplicity and directness of his method and the almost severe conscientiousness of his drawing, no less than for his masterly knowledge of black and white, no safer guide could be commended to the young architectural pen-man for the study of principles than Mr. Gregg. Architectural illustration in America owes much to his influence and, indeed, he may be said to have furnished it with a grammar. Take his drawing of the English cottages, Fig. 50. It is a masterly piece of pen work. There is not a feeble or tentative stroke in the whole of it. The color is brilliant and the textures are expressed with wonderful skill. The student ought to carefully observe the rendering of the various roofs. Notice how the character of the thatch on the second cottage differs from that on the first, and how radically the method of rendering of either varies from that used on the shingle roof at the end of the picture. Compare also the two gable chimneys with each other as well as with the old ruin seen over the tree-tops. Here is a drawing by an architectural draughtsman of an architectural actuality and not of an artificial abstraction. This is a fairer ground on which to meet the illustrators of the picturesque.
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| FIG. 48 | D. A. GREGG |
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| FIG. 49 | HERBERT RAILTON |