The text provides guidance on improving drawing skills through memorization and comparison practices without relying on original models. These practices enhance attention to detail and assist in retaining artistic concepts. It also discusses the advantages of observing nature under different lighting conditions to improve drawing skills.
Method for Learning
Practice for Benefiting from Studies.
Of all the methods one can use to benefit from studying drawing, there is none better than practicing by heart, without any original model, the same things you copied the previous day, whether from drawings or paintings or directly from life. Afterward, compare these second drawings with the first ones to see if you have retained the idea well. This practice has two good effects: first, paying more attention to the original when drawing from it, which results in a better copy; second, impressing the beauties you studied more deeply into your mind and memory, which is very advantageous as the goal of your work is to remember what you have studied.
For similar reasons, students have more advantages studying nature by lamplight rather than daylight, because the pronounced shadows help them perceive details better; whereas in daylight, they cannot discover anything. It is true that daylight is better than lamplight as they advance, because they will know nature according to it, resulting in a greater number of artworks.