Page:Drawing for Beginners.djvu/206

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the sails of fishing smacks or long-shore boats, we must be careful not to neglect the rigging and shape of the sails.

I have a distinct rememberance of five drawings by five little ladies of a fishing smack with sails exactly the same shape fore and aft. Compare one sail with another sail. Begin by drawing the long sweeping curves of the hull, and then the angle of the mast. With these two facts carefully noted you won't go quite so far astray.

A beach, however, has a lot to offer besides the boats.

There are the capstans, and the high black houses where

Fig. 80. Study of a Boat

the fishermen store their nets and tackle, and the lobster pots, and the heaps of coiled ropes. There are the rocks with their brown and mossy sides reflected in limpid pools; crabs; shells of all descriptions; starfishes most obligingly lazy and quiet; sprays of deliciously coloured seaweed; sand castles, wooden spades, and scarlet buckets.

The beach is full of interesting little colour subjects. The air is clear, and the water reflects the light; bright caps and frocks, sails and seaweed, and the striped tents and scarlet buckets are all most attractive.

All our former discussions, our thumbnail sketches, pencil and chalk studies, and small landscapes in colour will render sketching by the seashore easier.

If we wish to sketch people sitting on the beach, or children