Mr. Seymour showed Ben how to plan his picture, so that his drawing would be balanced and the deer stand straight on their own four legs.
“You will have to decide first of all, Ben, just how the deer balances his weight on his feet while he is jumping, and then draw him so that this point of balance comes as a straight right angle up from the line where you are going to draw in your ground. That point of balance is what makes people and animals stand upright, for otherwise they would fall down. So when you draw pictures of them, you have to plan very carefully to get an effect of stability in your drawing.”
In beginning his own picture Mr. Seymour planned to paint the swamp first, and then place the deer in position some morning after he had had an opportunity to sketch them rapidly from life. He hoped to see them again, poised on the edge of the water before him. Consequently he busied himself in transferring the pond with its green motionless water surrounded by the dark pine woods to a canvas that was twice the size of the one that Ben was working on.
Often the rest of the band gathered around the painters to watch the growth of the two pictures, for they felt a personal interest and responsibility because of their share in discovering the deer. Jo liked to watch the brush in Mr. Seymour’s quick deft fingers and see how a few strokes of color here and there made a splotch of green look like a pine tree. Under his eyes Jo saw the swamp grow on the gray canvas. It was the swamp, and yet it was not exactly like the swamp itself, for Mr. Seymour had left out a great deal of underbrush and many of the trees. When Jo asked him why, he explained:
“When you look at that pond out there with the trees for a background, it fills the entire space so far as you are concerned while you are looking at it. That is the first thing you notice. Now what is the second thing?”
“Well, I guess,” Jo ventured, “that I notice next that the pine trees are pointed up into the sky, all jagged, while down below the trees come together and I can’t separate one from another. It is all a darkness.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Seymour, “but doesn’t that mean something more to you than just a lot of pine trees growing together?”
“I don’t exactly know what you mean,” Jo answered. “They are pine trees, most of them, although I can see one or two foliage trees among them—shouldn’t wonder but what they are swamp maples.”
“You’re too definite, Jo.” And Mr. Seymour laughed. “I didn’t mean to ask you to look for the other trees, because you can see them only when you look carefully.”
“I know what you mean, father, and you shouldn’t ask questions—it takes too long. You should tell Jo right out.” Ann looked at her father with her eyes twinkling. “You wanted Jo to say that the first thing he saw in looking into a space filled with trees was the line they grew in.”