Featured on PDR in the collection Frederick Whitney’s Blackboard Sketching (1909)

In his brief introduction to Frederick Whitney’s Blackboard Sketching, the American painter and educator Walter Sargent writes that “to draw easily and well on the blackboard is a power which every teacher of children covets. Such drawing is a language which never fails to hold attention and awaken delighted interest”. Aimed at educators looking to improve their lesson plans, these drawings may capture the attention of young students, but Whitney’s illustrative plates for Blackboard Sketching are also capable of awakening a childhood wonder in their adult viewer. Using simple strokes — “a straight mark with the side of the chalk”; “a quick back-and-forth movement”; “a graded stroke from side to side” — he summons lifelike oyster shells, Shakespearean castles, and cozy Christmas hearths. Out of…