Glance quickly from your drawing to the model. The strong, and often cruel, contrast of drawing versus Nature 'does the trick,' and emphasizes faults of light and shade, construction (or framework), balance, and proportions.
In the drawing of the "human form divine" there are many things to deceive the eye and make the task difficult. Clothes are the greatest offenders—skirts, wide trousers, full sleeves, thick leggings, large bonnets, baggy tunics, cloaks, robes, hats, wigs—anything, in short, which is bulky is deceiving.
How often do we see the lady's feet emerging from her pretty floating skirt in a position which is a physical impossibility!
The Tudor and the Early Victorian costumes are great temptations to the novice, who greedily seizes upon the picturesque ample robes and skirts to hide the difficult drawing.
They may save a little trouble in the small matter of drawing arms and legs, and even feet, but beware lest they plunge you into worse difficulties!
A young artist of my acquaintance loathed the drawing of hands. She used the most ingenious devices to hide the hands from view. Winds blew, aprons flew, cloaks floated and concealed, but if the hands had of necessity to appear then she was utterly lost, and found that she had not knowledge wherewith to inform her drawings. Dutch men, women, and children—what favourites they are! And there again do we find the lure of the dress in the wide trousers of Jan, and the big sabots of Jan's pretty sister. The wider of the trousers, the fuller the skirts, the less shall we see of the difficult legs, says the young artist. But no matter how thick and frilly are the petticoats and how wide are the trousers, those difficult legs are not to be ignored. They must be traced lightly beneath the garments.
We cannot disguise the fact that if we are drawing human beings, two legs, two arms, and a head and body of reasonable proportions are essential for each.
