3il -Lli 



Four ducks on a pond, 

 A i*rass bank beyond, 

 A blue sky of spring, 

 White clouds on the wing ; 

 What a little thinj* 

 To remember for years — 

 To remember urith tears ! 

 IViiiiam Allinghavi. 





growing in pairs on either side of the stems of each group of 

 flowers, are ver\' beautifully shaped. 



The lovely cow-parsley is now in all its beauty in field 

 and hedgerow, and this is another thing to try our skill if we make 

 a study of its feathery fleeting beauty. It is a charming foreground for 

 a landscape artist, too. 



How delightful its lacclike heads of blossom look overshadowing this 

 huge bunch of golden buttercups we plucked in the meadow, which is now 

 a harmony of green and gold, a little later to take a still more rich effect 

 of colour when the grasses are ripening, and the rich red sorrel comes 

 into its own. 



If you make a study of buttercups, it had better be a quick study, 

 one you can finish at a single sitting, for the flowers, when plucked and 

 put in water, have a funny habit of growing tall. The stems run up 

 quite quickly, and in a short time the whole aspect of the group is 

 changed. 



Perhaps you will wonder a little at my choice of the humble 

 dandelion for a sketch, but to my mind it is a flower never sufficiently 

 appreciated. To the designer, whose art it is to study natural forms, and 

 then so conventionalise them as to make them suitable for wall-papers, 

 textiles, etc., the dandelion possesses endless possibilities. The golden 

 petals, toothed at the edges, from which the plant takes its name of Dens 

 leonis (lion's tooth) ; the curiously and handsomely serrated leaves ; its 

 pointed buds ; and last, but not least, its graceful, gossamerlike puff-ball 

 seed, so loved by the country child, are all too decorative to be passed 

 by. This "What's o'clock" is rather a difficult customer to introduce in 

 a floral design, and is generally best e.xpressed, I find, by wiping out the 

 form from the background in a rather smudgy wa}% with a sable hair 

 brush, clean water, and a bit of rag ; just lightly touching in, with a very 

 fine brush, any little definite bits of detail that strike you most forcibly 

 on the light side, never losing sight of its airy lightness and globular 

 form. If you were to make out every one of those funny little umbrella- 

 like fluffinesses of which it is composed, definitely, the downy effect of 

 the whole would be completely lost, and its character entirely gone. 



One bright morning, when you are feeling braced up for conquest, 

 and strong enough to grapple with an_\- amount of hard work and 



ndelion, with globe oS d 

 The schoolboy's clock in every town 

 Which the truant puffs amain 

 To conjure lost hours back again. 



Ih.lvitl 



39 



