The columbines, stone blue, or deep ni^ht brown. 

 Their honeycomb-like blossoms hanginii down; 

 Each cottafie garden's fond adopted child, 

 Though heaths still claim them, where they yet gr 



directly as \-ou know how, thereby avoiding the inuddiness so fatal to 

 good effect in everything, but perhaps most particularly in flowers, 

 whose brightness and freshness constitutes their own particular charm. 



Look long at your models before putting brush to paper ; determine 

 your colours, and try them first on another piece of paper of the same 

 texture without making experiments on j-our study itself This careful 

 deliberation at the outset may be the means of saving you much trouble 

 later on ; it maj' save you the painful necessity of " sponging," or 

 " washing out," and thereby worrying the surface of your paper until 

 a roughened woolly surface is the result. Even the best water-colour 

 papers will not stand indiscriminate scrubbing. \'eteran water-colour 

 artists have told me that the paper we buy at the present day is vastly 

 inferior to that of the good old times, when linen rags, instead of cotton, 

 were used in its manufacture. 



When once a water-colour looks dirt)% smudgy, crude, and dis- 

 appointing, I would infinite!}' rather commence an entirely new study 

 than spend endless time and exhaust my patience in trying to improve 



the old. Clear fresh colour cannot 

 possibly be obtained over a founda- 

 tion of muddiness, and the use of 

 Chinese white is opaque and any- 

 thing but satisfactoi)-. 



A fellow student of mine, who 

 was interested in flower-painting, 

 once showed me a study she had 

 made of some big field daisies, 

 and although she had taken great 

 pains with tliem, she was artist 

 enough to see there was some- 

 thing haixl and unpleasing about 

 the group : the greys were crude 

 ami ink)-, and quite unlike the 

 pearl}- purit}- of the shades in the 

 actual flowers ; the shadows were 

 heavy and dark ; the centres hard 

 and of a mustardy hue. She 

 asked me what she could do to 

 improve the whole group. " Re- 

 paint it entirely ! " I answered, 

 '' for I am quite sure it will never 

 look fresh and pure with merely 

 touching up." 



She looked at nic with astonish- 

 ment and reproach in her eyes. 

 " Kff>niiit it ! " she exclaimed, 





64 



