Part 5 ➤ Out and About with Your Sketchbook 250 ➤ Remember to look for interesting structures like arches, arbors, pergolas, gazebos, elaborate screen houses, greenhouses, and wraparound porches. They require careful seeing and drawing, but they make great subjects and can add a sense of place or atmosphere to a scene. Down on the Farm Drawing farmhouses invites detail. There is so much going on and, seemingly, a structure for each activity—from maple sugar shacks out in the woods in Vermont to huge dairy barns in New York State, from cattle ranches in Idaho to windblown, abandoned farmsteads in Nebraska. There are small family farms, citrus groves, tree farms, truck farms, and im- mense factory farms. Try drawing the barns, silos, and sheds in a farmyard. Fences, corrals, and stone walls will add interesting diagonals and texture while defining the land shapes and inviting the view- er into the composition. You won’t run out of structures to draw on a farm for some time. 251 Chapter 19 ➤ Houses and Other Structures Out on the Edge And then there are the more special structures in your landscape, places you might be particularly fond of, from mountaintop huts to lighthouses on rocky shores, just waiting to challenge you and en- liven your drawings. Try drawing some of the unusual structures you find on your trav- els, such as lighthouses, windmills, towers, huts, sheds, cabins, fish- ing shacks, lean-tos, tents, tree houses, and screen houses. And don’t forget the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde—and the pit houses of Chaco Canyon. Don’t forget those cellular towers and high-voltage electric lines stretching across the plains. Or Hoover Dam stretching across the Try Your Hand Experiment with different pencils and other drawing tools to find marks that you like. Try sharpening a pencil to a chisel point to make a flat mark for wood texture. Farm structures are as varied as the landscape. What choices will you make to compose your drawing? Part 5 ➤ Out and About with Your Sketchbook 252 Colorado River. Human-made structures add high drama to Mother Nature’s works, and they can add drama to your work as well. Windmills, towers: Nothing is too unusual for your drawing pencil and sketchbook! Chapter 19 ➤ Houses and Other Structures Your Sketchbook Page Try your hand at practicing the exercises you’ve learned in this chapter. Part 5 ➤ Out and About with Your Sketchbook 254 The Least You Need to Know ➤ Houses are fascinating to draw and there is no shortage of them in the landscape. ➤ Informal sketches can accurately describe a house and its personality if they are care- fully seen, measured relatively, and drawn progressively from the basic shapes to the finished detail. ➤ A formal rendering in perspective is another kind of portrait. ➤ Try drawing houses into your landscapes, especially on trips, so you can include styles and detail that are unusual. ➤ Don’t forget about the exciting, exotic, and estrange in your choices of houses to draw. Why stay home when you can go have an adventure—and draw it, too? Part 6 Drawing Animals and People It’s time to start putting some life into your drawings, and in this section, you’ll learn to draw both animals and humans. Both require seeing the action and gesture, then the proportion and form, followed by detail. Learn why the nude has always been the object of artists’ affections—and why it may turn out to be yours as well. You’ll also learn about gesture and movement, and how to render them on the page. . Sketchbook 252 Colorado River. Human-made structures add high drama to Mother Nature’s works, and they can add drama to your work as well. Windmills, towers: Nothing is too unusual for your drawing pencil and sketchbook! Chapter. your choices of houses to draw. Why stay home when you can go have an adventure—and draw it, too? Part 6 Drawing Animals and People It’s time to start putting some life into your drawings, and. cellular towers and high-voltage electric lines stretching across the plains. Or Hoover Dam stretching across the Try Your Hand Experiment with different pencils and other drawing tools to find marks