CHAPTER IX

TEXTURES IN MONOCHROME

WHEN you have made studies in different views of the cast, or between the making of these varying effects from it, arrange a silver teapot against a piece of coloured satin or other material, and paint it exactly in the same way in monochrome. You are not to seek to convey the sense of colour, except through the just realisation of the relative tones. As I have pointed out to you, a monochrome photograph enables you to distinguish metals and the texture of other materials quite independently of colour, although you may often be able to guess their actual colours by the justness of the tone relations. In this study use more of the stiff or solid white for the silver, for you have yet to get used to managing the stiffer pigments ; and whatever you do, do not retouch the study with any colour when it is dry or tacky. It will be quite time enough to do this when you have had experience and have gained sufficient judgment to retouch your work without losing the sense of oneness; for although you may feel that a few corrections are necessary, you will do more harm than good. You are likely to lose [89] the quality you will have realised by keeping the study all wet together, if you retouch the surface however slightly.

Now, we will imagine that you have neglected to scrape off your paint while the study was wet, and desire to continue with it although it has dried. If the work is only partly dry, and too set to be removed with the palette knife, you had best not continue with that study until it is thoroughly set. It is better to start something else meanwhile.

If, however, it is practically dry, how shall we proceed? First of all, take your "plush mat" and erase some of the dark colour from your shadows and background, right up to and even over the outline, not forgetting to place a thick cardboard immediately behind the canvas, between it and your stretcher. This will give you a firm ground to scrape upon, and will prevent abrasions. Repeated covering of already dark paint will lead to muddiness ; but by erasing somewhat, you will be able to preserve the requisite transparent quality. If, at the same time, the light passages are over-encumbered, use your plush mat so that the scraping undulates across the modelling, from side to side of the study, pressing but slightly on the mat. Any uneven pressure may result in ugly ruts, in which eventuality you had best scrape till the immediately surrounding canvas is altogether bare.

After this preparation, begin again according [90] to the instructions given in the early part of the chapter. I have told you that you may paint two or three times only over the lights without danger of losing freshness, and for this reason it is wise to paint thinly at the start, reserving your full brush until you arrive at what you hope may be the last painting, so as.also to retain as long as possible the grain of your canvas.

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CHAPTER X

STILL LIFE IN COLOUR

Before recommending you to paint in monochrome from the living model, I should advise you at this stage to practise working with your palette at some still-life subject, painting in direct colour à prima, of course after having carefully drawn your study.

I advise you thus because, although I wish you to prepare all your serious work in monochrome, there will be occasions when you will have no opportunity of returning to your work a second time in which case a first monochrome painting be of little use to you. You may have to make a rapid study in colour, perhaps of a passing effect in landscape, the study of a figure in the open, of certain flowers or other perishable objects - even a study for a portrait to be done at one sitting. And it may often occur that in your more serious work some change will be found advisable in a minor part for which you have no time to prepare except by scraping, as well as I in other instances, to which I shall allude later, so that in any case à prima painting must be studied.

[92] Arrange some fruit in a dish against an appropriate background ; draw the subject most carefully in charcoal, and after having blown or brushed away all unnecessary blackness (for the black of the charcoal would destroy all freshness of colour), clean your canvas with bread-for with flowers, flesh, or any delicate subject, you cannot work too cleanly. Some of your contemporaries may tell you that you cannot get any quality in your colour by a clean method-dirt is so often mistaken for tone ! Let, however, the quality you seek be under your own control, and not the result of a slovenly method. Let your dish of fruit consist of apples, an orange or two, bananas, and so on, as well as a few large leaves, all simple forms, not too intricate in drawing. Paint in your background tone, covering the canvas, all but the main subject. Mix up on your palette some of the general colours, the middle tones of the fruit, leaves, and dish, matching the colours and tones as you would match silks or wools, and so cover the rest of the canvas. This time use linseed oil in your pot, and brushes of fair size. Now match the tone of the varying coloured shadows, and paint them; then, the higher lights ; and after that, the broken passages of colour. If, for instance, there is some red in the green or yellow apples, scrape off with your palette knife some of the middle tone colour, over which the clean red is to appear.

From time to time place your canvas against [93] the subject, walk back as far as possible from your work, and compare it with the group in the hand-glass. See that the comparative tone values of the parts are just, and that the whole mass of fruit, &c., is in tone and in colour relation to the background. You will find that in contrast with the brilliant fruit the colour of the background will be considerably modified, as will also be the shadow colours of the fruits themselves by their juxtaposition. Be content only with your work when the apples look eatable, their polished surface not overdone. In other words, see that the high lights are exactly their right tone, and not too light, and that all other lights and light masses are subordinate to what happens to be the highest light or light passages. Make sure that each piece of fruit keeps its place in relation to the rest, and that the whole looks like a mass of fruit, and not a coloured list of separate items.

This general aspect you must try to get at the outset, and preserve, in spite of the finish you may bestow on the parts. The part must always be Subordinate to the whole.

If at the end of the day's work any portion is not satisfactory, scrape it away with the palette knife, evenly taking off the solid paint ; the rest may perhaps be sufficiently wet to enable you to continue the next morning.

If it is winter, put your canvas in a cold place, outside your studio or room, if possible exposed [94] to the air. Thus treated, paint often remains sufficiently wet to enable you to continue the following day.

In almost all instances the first painting on a new canvas dries very slowly, but it will frequently work up-that is, leave the canvas when worked over, and not settle. You might in such instances lay blotting-paper over it to absorb the superfluous oil ; and if that does not answer- for it will largely depend on the texture of your canvas-take off the paint with your palette knife and clean it again with a rag. This being done, paint with greater solidity, with less oil ; a little mastic or amber varnish with the colour may help you to steady it. Many such technical difficulties will require special treatment, and experience alone will enable you to overcome them.

I ought perhaps to tell you that, except for the background and shadows, you might paint all the more solid light passages without a medium, if you wish to complete your study at one sitting.

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