In the summer vacations he did not return home, but accompanied this artist on sketching tours along the coast of Maine.

His style improved immensely the moment he abandoned flat studies and began to work directly from Nature.

He drew figures well, showed a feeling for desolate landscapes, and even gave promise of a good eye for colour.

But he allowed his fondness for art to interfere constantly with his college work.

By the middle of his senior year he was so loaded with conditions that it was only Geary's unwearied coaching that pulled him through at all--as Vandover knew it would, for that matter.
Vandover returned to San Francisco when he was twenty-two.