CHAPTER XI

SILVER AND CHINA IN COLOUR

Now arrange a still-life group (similar to the one to be done in the monochrome) of silver and china on a white cloth, with any other objects that may help to compose the group, and, by way of getting accustomed to the different mediums, put some amber or mastic varnish in your oil-pot, adding to it a little linseed oil.

This makes a very fat medium, and may render your silver objects more effective.

In such a group the delicately contrasted whites should make a good study. Be careful to compare the varying qualities of the white and other delicate tints. Note the effect which the high lights on the silver have upon all other tones ; and although the reflections in the shadows on the metal may appear very high in colour, let there be no mistake about their being reflections, both in the quality of their colour and their general tone. You must also look for the alternating warm and the cool tones that may occur throughout the group.

Keep your colour pure. Lay in the whole as before directed, and think less at the outset of the nature of the textures than of the patches of varying [96] light and dark tones. If these are carefully followed, and a tone coloured map, as it were, of the whole mechanically reproduced, the textures will be at least partly realised. Having looked into the glass at your canvas, which is now completely covered and placed by the side of your group, seek to elaborate each object, and if by chance there is any sense of monotony in the work, you will find that by laying on the light of the silver very cleanly and very solidly, you may get greater contrast of tone. Leave your work at intervals, for ten minutes at a time, coming back to it with a fresh eye. It is important at all times, when you are working in colour, to interrupt the work with this object in view. You will more readily appreciate the delicate variations, and become aware of any false sense of colour that may permeate the study.

Try and make this group as finished as you can, even though it may look over-laboured. You are not likely to preserve a desirable freshness with completeness in your early practice, but you must learn to concentrate, and stick at it. You will get into messes often enough, and you must learn how to get out of them. You may be sure that without great determination nothing is achieved that is worth achieving.

If the study is at all promising, leave it intact, and take it up, if you can keep it wet, the next day ; if not, let it dry thoroughly, and then take it up again. Many roads lead to Rome, so on [97] another occasion try a different method. Take up the same group from the same view. Having done it as a whole, you will have learnt something of the relative value of the parts. Make your drawing, and on the bare white canvas complete absolutely each object separately, bearing in mind, while painting it, its relative value to the whole. This is excellent practice, and will best enable you to finish. Experience gained in this way is invaluable : you will see when the study is done whether you have over- or under-stated the value of the tone of any particular part. I should advise you to begin with the object strongest in light and shade, so as to set the key for the whole, and paint it up to full strength, or you will find most likely, when the surroundings and background are painted, that it may look weak.

It is quite possible to complete a picture bit by bit in this way. Many of the students in the École des Beaux Arts in my time began their studies from the nude at the head and worked down to the feet without retouching; and such studies, when completed, were often perfect in the relative value of the parts to the whole.

In this way freshness is preserved and completeness attained ; and for the student who is beginning, it is far less distracting than what I might call the driving of a whole team. With a simple theme, it is better to keep the whole going together, but with a more complicated one, when the colour, tone, and drawing, and many subtleties [98] demand consideration, it is wiser for the beginner to divide up his work in the way here suggested.

When the weather is favourable, go out into the open and paint some simple landscape studies. I shall leave it to others more capable to give you detailed instruction in landscape painting ; but such work will be a pleasant change for you, and I more particularly want you to make value relation in landscape your main objective at this period of your studentship. A few studies of skies also will teach you the importance of a clean method, and will give you greater freedom of handling.

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