s from nature,
whether more gradation, or greater watchfulness of the disposition of
the folds. Probably for some time you will find yourself failing
painfully in both, for drapery is very difficult to follow in its
sweeps; but do not lose courage, for the greater the difficulty, the
greater the gain in the effort. If your eye is more just in measurement
of form than delicate in perception of tint, a pattern on the folded
surface will help you. Try whether it does or not; and if the patterned
drapery confuses you, keep for a time to the simple white one; but if it
helps you, continue to choose patterned stuffs (tartans, and simple
chequered designs are better at first than flowered ones), and even
though it should confuse you, begin pretty soon to use a pattern
occasionally, copying all the distortions and perspective modifications
of it among the folds with scrupulous care.

Neither must you suppose yourself condescending in doing this. The
greatest masters are always fond of drawing patterns; and the greater
they are, the more pains they take to do it truly.[210] Nor can there be
better practice at any time, as introductory to the nobler complication
of natural detail. For when you can draw the spots which follow the
folds of a printed stuff, you will have some chance of following the
spots which fall into the folds of the skin of a leopard as he leaps;
but if you cannot draw the manufacture, assuredly you will never be able
to draw the creature. So the cloudings on a piece of wood, carefully
drawn, will be the best introduction to the drawing of the clouds of the
sky, or the waves of the sea; and the dead leaf-patterns on a damask
drapery, well rendered, will enable you to disentangle masterfully the
living leaf-patterns of a thorn thicket, or a violet bank.

Observe, however, in drawing any stuffs, or bindings of books, or other
finely textured substances, do not trouble yourself, as yet, much about
the woolliness or gauziness of the thing; but get it right in shade and
fold, and true in pattern. We shall see, in the course of
after-practice, how the penned lines may be made indicative of texture;
but at present attend only to the light, and shade, and pattern. You
will be puzzled at first by _lustrous_ surfaces, but a little attention
will show you that the expression of these depends merely on the right
drawing of their light, and shade, and reflections. Put a small black
japanned tray on the table in front of so