Sketching Outdoors in Summer

Readers familiar with Arnosky's Drawing from Nature and Sketching Outdoors in Spring will find more incisive instructions as they follow the artist's path, winding its way like a snake in the hot summer sun. Some of the sketches are done on fishing trips ``between casts for trout and bass.'' Graphic depictions of small details are supplemented with impressionistic strokes of wide pencil lines when the mass of green is seen merely as ``a chaos of lines, shapes, and shadows.'' The ordered structure of the picture is observed only after the work is finished. And ``hide your eraser,'' the artist advises, ``there are no mistakes to be made.'' Motion, noise, cooling rain and scorching heat also are not to be absorbed by the artistnot even the noise of the carpenter-pencil scratching along the surface of the paper. With varying degrees of complexity and usefulness, Arnosky's instructions are imparted here to convey the need to ``feel'' first, then sketch, nature's seasonal passage through time. For some, looking beyond the hand-and-eye technique may prove invaluable; while able; while others may want to find their own path through the outdoors. Ages 10-up. (May)