Page:Drawing for Beginners.djvu/112

 affairs in our early drawings, represented with very small (and always unpadded) seats, perched on long, crooked, and stilt-like legs.

The seat of a chair is a little lower than an adult's knee. How uncomfortable it would be were it otherwise! And the back of the chair (I refer to the ordinary dining-room chair) lies half-way between the knee and the hip, and level with the outstretched hand of a grown person of average height. Ask your mother, father or big brother to stand for a second by a chair and check these proportions for yourself. The height of a dining-room table is higher, but only a little higher than the height of a seated man's elbow. An inexperienced artist is inclined to draw the table far too high. And a table either too high or two low would complicate matters pretty considerably for the diner.

A chair is an interesting subject to draw. Even the roughest and most primitive has good lines and a certain grace. First sketch the skeleton shape, the seat and the four legs, as you would a box, by drawing lines from point to point. This will enable you to get a clear idea of the perspective. Then compare the curves of the back legs with those of the front, carry the curve from the legs up to the back, and add the arms.

Chairs there are of every description, lounge-chairs, and chairs fashioned out of all kinds of materials. When chairs are given for tests in drawing examinations they are usually the simple wooden or Windsor chairs, and if you should feel inspired to try your hand in this direction, add something of an outside interest, a velvet or silk cushion, a fur stole or a woollen scarf; or, better still, persuade Pussy to lie curled upon the seat. Then you will have several kinds of textures. Couches, settees, and sofas are often under-represented in our sketches. They are really very large objects, and made to hold a grown person when lying full length.

Beds, too, are commonly shorn of half their width and length. A bed, even a small one, occupies a good deal of space. If we err over the length and width, we are on the other