All his published lithographic sketches are of the greatest value,
wholly unrivaled in power of composition, and in love and feeling of
architectural subject. His somewhat mannered linear execution, though
not to be imitated in your own sketches from Nature, may be occasionally
copied, for discipline's sake, with great advantage: it will give you a
peculiar steadiness of hand, not quickly attainable in any other way;
and there is no fear of your getting into any faultful mannerism as long
as you carry out the different modes of more delicate study above
recommended.
If you are interested in architecture, and wish to make it your chief
study, you should draw much from photographs of it; and then from the
architecture itself, with the same completion of detail and gradation,
only keeping the shadows of due paleness,--in photographs they are
always about four times as dark as they ought to be,--and treat
buildings with as much care and love as artists do their rock
foregrounds, drawing all the moss, and weeds, and stains upon them. But
if, without caring to understand architecture, you merely want the
picturesque character of it, and to be able to sketch it fast, you
cannot do better than take Prout for your exclusive master; only do not
think that you are copying Prout by drawing straight lines with dots at
the end of them. Get first his "Rhine," and draw the subjects that have
most hills, and least architecture in them, with chalk on smooth paper,
till you can lay on his broad flat tints, and get his gradations of
light, which are very wonderful; then take up the architectural subjects
in the "Rhine," and draw again and again the groups of figures, etc., in
his "Microcosm," and "Lessons on Light and Shadow." After that, proceed
to copy the grand subjects in the "Sketches in Flanders and Germany;" or
"in Switzerland and Italy," if you cannot get the Flanders; but the
Switzerland is very far inferior. Then work from Nature, not trying to
Proutize Nature, by breaking smooth buildings into rough ones, but only
drawing _what you see_, with Prout's simple method and firm lines. Don't
copy his colored works. They are good, but not at all equal to his chalk
and pencil drawings; and you will become a mere imitator, and a very
feeble imitator, if you use color at all in Prout's method. I have not
space to explain why this is so, it would take a long piece of
reasoning; trust me for the statement.