APPLICATION OF THE BLUE BLOT TO A GROUP OF 
BLUE FLOWERS. 
Blue, as has already been observed, is not a favourable colour to form 
a composition with; but a painter should be able to surmount every diffi¬ 
culty, as well as avail himself of any advantageous circumstance that may 
attend the various subjects that happen to employ his pencil. 
To form any thing like a pleasing composition of blue flowers, be 
must select some of a pale colour, the harmonizing tint to which may be 
either a deeper blue, or a green, or both; if, as in this case, it be necessary 
to introduce the latter, which in a group of flowers, cannot be dispensed 
with, although a composition of blue might be formed without it. Among 
the variety of blue flowers, there are very few but what have a mixture 
of other colours in them, although blue may predominate, so as to be the 
distinguishing colour; and white, yellow, crimson, and lilac, are seen in smaller 
portions in the petals of all the blue convolvolus tribe. In the minor con- 
volvolus, the subject, we will suppose, of this blot, both white and yellow 
form the star in the centre of the flower; and with orange, the contrasting 
tint to the blue, and black to the white, there will be no less than eight 
different tints to work with, and distribute throughout the group. Although 
three of them only are considered as principals, and to be measuied out 
in prismatic portions, which are the blue, the orange, and the green ; the 
others, as before directed, are to come in only in the small quantity in 
which they appear in the flower. 
With these materials, then, I place the most brilliant tint or blue 
flower at A, in the full light, with some deeper shades of it in more of 
the flower around it ; the contrasting tint, orange, at B, in the deepest 
shade ; and it will be easy to select an orange flower of a proper hue, for 
it should not be of a pure, but of a dingy tint; the green leaves should 
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