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my open-air studio. For I must most emphatically warn you, when 

 working out-of-doors, not to have the sun on your work ; the glare on 

 the white paper not only is extremely bad for your eyes, but will give 

 }our sketch a hard and crude appearance when taken indoors. 



Sometimes one can find very beautiful groups of wild flowers, and 

 work from them as they grow ; the little bit of ivy-leaved toad-flax was 

 worked out from a sketch made thus in Somerset last year. And I only 

 wish I could call colour to m\- aid to show you how beautiful it looked 

 with its delicately shaded heart-shaped leaves, and tiny mauve flowers, 

 against its background of mossy grej' stone wall. 



A spray of wild rose, or bramble on a hedgerow, 

 makes also a lovely sketch, but I think that, as a 

 general rule, it is almost best, while we are in- 

 experienced students, to detach a suitable spray 

 from its surroundings, and to put it against a plain 

 simple background, such as a leaf from our sketch- 

 book ; so that we can see the actual form of petal, 

 leaf, and stem, apart from confusing elements around. 

 Many of the most beautiful of our floral gems 

 J^ wff hide themselves so modestly among their bolder 



neighbours that they are almost concealed from our 

 view. And many are so short of stature that, 

 unless we contemplate a bird's-eye view, we should 

 have to lie flat on the ground to get a good " point 

 of sight." 



It requires a very skilled hand to paint, with 

 good effect, masses of wild flowers as they grow in 

 the lovely surroundings in which they were born ; 

 and perhaps this is more within the province of 

 ' " ^^ the landscape painter, who can find immense value 



in these broad masses of colour as foregrounds for 

 his studies of rural beauty. 



I am writing this on a July da)' ; the glory of 

 the spring woods has departed ; the season has 

 moved onward, and laid a mellowing hand on 

 hedgerow and copse ; and the beauties of early spring are maturing 

 towards the fulfilment of their part in Nature's scheme. Most of the 

 wild roses have faded, and are already showing their fruit, though green 

 as yet. Here and there you may find a bush of the white variety still 

 in bloom, and entwined with honeysuckle. 



Tiie may-flowers have also turned to brown, and show promise of a 

 glorious store of deep red berries to gladden our sight in the coming 

 autumn, and to prove a rich harvest to the song-birds, whose voices are 

 hushed now in the heat of the day. But what a wealth of beautiful 

 flowers is still left us for our studies ! Though the mower has ruthlessly 



White butterSlies in the air. 

 White Daisies prank the ground ; 



The cherry and the hoary pear 

 Scatter their snow around. 



A'oicrt BrUees. 



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