The Parents' Review

A Monthly Magazine of Home-Training and Culture

Senior Art Club Compilation of Assignments

[Nature Sketch Ideas by Month]

PR Vol 12, page 67
Subjects for January

I. Game. A time study. Study, drawing, or painting of wing alone will be accepted.

II. Holly. A study in colour, done life size, or a design suggested by the leaf and berry.

III. Cast Drawing.

PR Vol 12, page 150
Subjects for February

I. A Study in Colour. Arrange various materials in strong colour, and paint so as to give the variety of the different textures. To be completed next month.

II. A Flower Study. To be done in one sitting.

III. Paint from a Cast. "Perch and Worm," or "Head of Augustus."

PR Vol 12, page 230
Subjects for March

I. The Drapery Study. Continued.

II. A Bunch of Grapes. Time study. To be done in one sitting.

III. Cast Drawing.

PR Vol 12, page 310
Subjects for April

I. And Out of Door Sketch.

II. Study of Apple Blossom. Go close up to your subject and paint it out of doors, placing your canvas beside the blossom. Take a small piece, but paint it life size.

III. Cast Drawing.

PR Vol 12, page 390
Subjects for May

I. May Blossoms. This may include a great variety of spring blossoms, according as the season is advanced or not. A small study, about 18 by 12, of peach, pear, or almond blossom--done, if possible, out of doors with the natural background. Blossoms are often painted, and some sort of sketch can be quickly done to look rather like them, but remember Maupassant's advice on the principle upon which originality depends. He recommends you to observe everything you wish to express--sufficiently long and attentively to find an aspect of it that no one has yet seen or described. We are in the habit of only using our eyes with the recollection of what others have thought of the thing we are examining.

II. Study of a bare branch of a tree, naming the kind of tree drawn. Do the study out of doors, if possible; if not, place a large branch against a sheet of paper indoors. Trees, as Ruskin tells us, must not be drawn as they are often to be seen in pictures by old masters, as "A faithful portrait of a large boa constrictor, with a handsome tail." The laws of Nature must be observed. The smallest shoot cannot be sent out of a bough without a diminution of the diameter about it.

III. Spring Landscape, size 14 by 10, or a sky study.

PR Vol 12, page 475
Subjects for June

I. Leafage. Take a similar bough to the bare branch chosen for last month's subject; bring it indoors, and try to draw or paint as many of the leaves as you can see, leaf for leaf. Then look out of doors for a similar branch seen against the sky, and treat it as it appears in the mass. Draw the direction of the branch first, so that the foliage may hang rightly in it. Pay great attention to the shape of the sky holes seen through the trees.

II. An Evening Effect, landscape size, 18 by 12.

III. Sky Study.

PR Vol 12, page 558
Subjects for July

I. Ripe Corn. The colour of ripe corn is such a fascinating one to work in that there is seldom any difficulty in finding an harmonious sketch, whatever time of the day you may select, only be careful to work only at that hour--you may have the time of day in your sketch. Mid-day with its intensity of quivering heat has great interest, but no doubt the quiet tones of evening being less complex lend themselves better to breadth and simplicity.

II. A second study of the same subject done under a different effect.

PR Vol 12, page 661
Subjects for August

I. We cannot do better than revert to our plan of having a holiday sketch during this month--it leaves the members free to select entirely their own point of view--and I hope for some very happy results.

II. August Moon. There is generally something very especial in the quality of the moonlight during August. I have seen evenings when, the moon being up while the daylight is hardly failed, the landscape has been bathed in a golden mist. These are fleeting moments of beauty, but if something of their glory, "the innermost glint of gold," can be secured, the sketch will always be a possession to refer to.

PR Vol 12, page 735
Subjects for September

I. By the Sea. If possible do a study of a wave, try and get the colour, and if you can help yourself by a study of a photograph, comparing it with Nature, do so.

II. Brambles. This may include a hedgerow of brambles in a landscape, or a close study of a branch of berries.

PR Vol 12, page 817
Subjects for October

I. Brown and Gold. This leaves a wide range for the imagination, and I recommend the more advanced students to choose subjects to please themselves.

II. A Study in Red and Green. The very natural suggestion given by this title is a study of apples with their leaves, or a mass of them fallen on the grass. It is a subject often given, but one that presents endless variety of beauty.

PR Vol 12, page 896
Subjects for November

I. A Bunch of Grapes in a Glass Dish. After arranging your composition and scheme of colouring and putting in the whole sketch, fix on one or two of the most prominent grapes, and paint them very carefully. Do not be content until they are as nearly like the originals as you can make them. To be sent in, two months in succession.

II. Cast of a Hand to be painted. Casts may be had from Brucciani's, 40, Russell Street, Covent Garden, at a small expense.

PR Vol 12, page 968
Subjects for December

I. Continuation of study of a bunch of grapes in a glass dish.

II. Cast drawing or painting.

III. Sketch in pencil of a good composition in landscape, to be done from sketches done by members during the summer.