A New Method of Assisting the Invention in Drawing Original Compositions of Landscape, Plates 9-18

This album contains plates 9 to 18 from Cozens’s drawing manual "A New Method of Assisting the Invention in Drawing Original Compositions of Landscape" (1786), in which he presented a technique he called "blotting." To make a blot, the artist smudged ink onto paper to map out the basic structure of a landscape composition. The resulting shapes could then be refined into a sketch and were meant to be the starting point of a more finished drawing or painting. Cozens illustrated his theoretical discussion of blotting with forty-three plates depicting sixteen types of ink blots, twenty different skies as well as seven plates detailing the progression from blot to sketch and finished drawing.

The plates contained in this album include blots number nine to sixteen as well as the first two types of sky. The blots are titled as follows:
9. Two hills, mountains, or rocks, near each other. At a moderate distance from the bottom of the view.
10. A track, proceeding forward from the eye, bounded by groups of objects.
11. Objects, or groups of objects, placed alternately on both hands, and gradually retiring from the eye. The horizon above the bottom of the view.
12. A flat bounded on all sides by groups of objects.
13. A hollow or bottom.
14. A close or confined scene, with little or no sky.
15. A landscape of a moderate extent between the right and left hand, the objects or groups placed irregularly, and no one predominant. The horizon above the bottom of the view.
16. An extensive country, with no predominant part or object. The horizon above the bottom of the view.
The skies are printed two plates per sheet and inscribed as follows:
17. All plain, darker at the top than the bottom, gradually.
18. Streaky Clouds at the top of the sky.