Elements of drawing exercises 6, 7 and 8

 I thought exercise 6 followed the approach previously used, and the outlining of tree branches was to get the idea of the spaces around objects, but reading again Ruskin wants the overlap of the branches to be described by the outline. 

Exercise 7 is about getting the hang of brushing tone evenly. He suggests visiting any ordinary water colour painter to see how this is done by a workman... I think if I was the workman I'd be pretty hacked off by Ruskin's condescending attitude, but anyway I didn't have any paste board, or Bristol board, or Prussian Blue, or in fact a camel hair brush of three quarters of an inch. 

I did try using a 1/2" red sable brush and some Dr Martin's 'Easy Spill' Phthalo Blue on a bit of cardboard, but lost heart and skipped to the next exercise.

Exercise 8 is the one that prompted me to do a Phd, the text I remember hearing was"...Now if you can draw that stone, you can draw anything"

The bit I didn't remember was the caveats that followed immediately "; I mean anything that isdrawable. Many things (sea foam, for instance) cannot be drawn at all, only the idea of the them more or less suggested ...."

Interesting at the time Ruskin wrote the book no-one had been able to see foam except in motion, the capability of photography to capture such things was decades in the future.

Strangely this exercise drops the instructions about what type of pencil or pen should be used and dwells on the direction of light. So I dropped the nasty H pencil and switched to a 2B.

I've stuck the book in my work bag, and will try and carry on withe the exercises over lunch at work.

Elements of Drawing exercise 4 and 5

 Exercise 4 switches to using a pencil to create a smooth tone gradient, but with the pencil point... and a nasty H pencil. 

Ruskin is aware this is odd behaviour, and that the silvery grey results will feel wrong, and the student's arty friends will tease them, but it's all about control. It would be interesting to see some examples of Ruskin's exercise attempts, the ones reproduced in the book are compromised by the print requirements of the day. I've had a search and can find examples of some botanical sketches but no cubes of tone ribbons.

Exercise 5 gets the student to construct a shape by filling the space with pencil tone. I'm not sure I was getting the value from the exercise, it's very difficult not to outline the shape as part of the process, which you aren't to do. Even though the shapes are very simple, just letters I found I could see my hand in the work... although I could be imagining it, and actually not be able to pick out my shapes from those of others. It does make me wonder at what point that emerges. There's probably studies on how far things can be abstracted.

I might see what happens if I just trace over some letters, would my hand still be clear?

I don't think that is what Ruskin was after. Next up is Exercise 6 which looks like drawing trees, or the shapes trees create in their branches. Ruskin suggests the use of a denuded tree which is tricky here as it's the start of Summer. I might get away with using the cabbage palms in the garden which had all the loose fronds blown away by strong winds.

Elements of Drawing on an iPad

 I tried the exercises on an iPad using Autodesk Sketchbook. This is the tool I use for almost everything these days, it's got a simple interface, and I'm familiar with the way the pen behaves.

It's different from doing real drawing with a dip pen, the sensitivity is set by the pen model as much as the delicacy of the user. I don't have to worry about ink gumming up the nib, or getting my hands covered. Strangely the setup I use is probably considered as obsolete as the dip pen, my iPad is 10 years old, ancient in technology terms, the battery is not great, and the 'pencil' stylus doesn't hold charge long.

The dip pen nibs I have were given to me 40 years ago and were probably 60 years old at the time... 100 year old nibs, no batteries required.

Elements of Drawing

Back in 2019? Emma Stibbon (Royal Academician) ran a workshop at the University of Brighton based on Ruskin's 'Elements of Drawing'.

That workshop was what spurred me to start my Phd 'teaching robots to draw'. I remember doing the exercises and wondering how one of my many robots would fare, and then being amazed at the level of precision it achieved.

I never finished the Phd, and never finished the exercises in the Elements Of Drawing...

Fast forward 7 years to June 2026 and a conversation with Elizabeth Read Wilson  at Purbeck Art Week who was very encouraging and got me thinking maybe I should have another look at Ruskin.

So here we go.

Exercise 1 in Elements of drawing is all about control, pen control as Ruskin is certain that a student will never master the finesse of a brush until they have proficiency with a (dip) pen and then a pencil.

When I did the workshop in 2019 I used a fat dip nib, as I'd not read the text. Ruskin actually suggests a fine Gillot crows quill, and ink 'as thick as it can be without clogging the pen.'

The aim of the exercise is to apply an even tone to a square.

I tried a couple of nibs, and indeed the Gillot crow quill was the most successful, but only after I switched up to a  thinner ink. The Deleter No.5 ink I started with was dense, and bunged up the nib. As I dont often use nibbed pens these days it took a while to work this out. Once I switched to some fresher Deleter No2 ink things went far better.

I thought I'd try with what used to be my default illustration pen, a Rotring isograph 0.5 which meant I spent a good hour un gumming the pen and getting ink stained fingers. 

In the second exercise you draw a pencil outline of a plant from a Botanical book, then ink over the lines evenly. This was the sort of thing I'd do when I was an illustrator - pencil the rough, get it approved, then ink it up. I changed that up after a few years by inking on fresh paper using the pencil sketch through a lightbox, as water colour inks worked better on cleaner paper.

These days digital sketching allows you just turn off a sketch layer.

Exercise 3 is about getting a even tone, Ruskin says this is tedious, in fact he reckons most of the exercises are a bit of a bore, but required to level up on penmanship.

I've got to keep on doing the squares in between Botanicals and tone strips, so we'll see how that pans out.

I have to say Ruskin writes in a pretty convoluted way and sometimes it's tricky to unpick the aim of the exercise. This feels more true when the context has changed, Ruskin talks a lot about looking at the cheap woodcuts in any publication, and assumes the reader has a proficiency with a dip pen... some of the pen control he's trying to promote may be an artefact of the available tools.  I'm going to guess these days a neo-Ruskin would get people to do this using a biro, something they were already familiar with.

I'll have a go with a bic later.

Edward the martyr

A while back I started a story about Edward Matrtyr, as he was a local boy... king... murdered by his brother just down the road at Corfe, then his corpse was stashed at Lady St Mary here in Wareham.

After a bit of malarkey the bones eventually ended up in the cutlery drawer of an Orthodox church.

Allegedly.

 

not inktober again

 

notinktober 2025 day 33

 Next month Dr Wayne Bartlett is talking about Dorset Vikings at WAHLS... so asI sat here watching him talk to Mighty Ships Dan on a Youtube video I drew a Viking, on a boat quietly entering the Poole harbour ...