ON WATER-COLOUR.
As the object of this work was, in the first intention, initiatory, I shall conclude it by addressing a few words to the student in water-colour painting;—the more especially as water colour embraces so many advantages, and as there is no elevated rank in art that it does not involve in its capabilities.
After soaking and laying the paper,—an operation that must be seen to be learned,—and assuming you have proceeded to the colouring, it will be essential that you use two palettes, or tiles; set one with the colours required separately, not allowing them to run together; then take sufficient colour up in the brush from each, and mix the tints on another, kept a little wet that they may mix well together;—cleaning this tile, as occasion may require, to make fresh tints on.
In the management of the greys, allowing the colours to run into one another, will produce many accidental and useful tints.
When too much colour has got on the paper, dip a thick short-haired brush in clean water, and wash into the paper with it, with sufficient force to blend them more, and remove the superfluous colour. If this method be not found sufficient, take a sponge, with very little clean water in it, and pass it lightly over, which will remove all hard edges, and greatly assist the atmospheric effect:—if this too much generalizes the colours, supply the sharp markings, as may be required, with a fine pointed sable, in their positive colours.
This method is not only the quickest way of bringing a drawing into a finished state, but adds materially to its transparency and solidity; and may be done at any period of the work.
A good master of the sponge will make several drawings, while one may be done with the brush alone. The colour will remove most easily when the surface of the drawing is previously wetted; taking great care, by keeping the sponge very clean, that none of the green tints float into the sky.
One colour laid over another, to produce the required tint, is in most cases better than mixing the tint at once, as it tends more to procure that 'internal light' so desirable in water-colour painting—taking care the under colour is dry before the other is floated over it; and always allowing for the density of the colour beneath qualifying the hue of the one laid over it. Thus, blue laid upon yellow, produces green; green over red, grey; and so on.
The slightest quantity of prepared ox-gall will make the colours wash free from grease; triflingly reducing the brilliancy, but fixing the wash more permanently.
Flatness of tint is a matter of great consequence, and of equal difficulty; and is considered a great excellence, as the clearness and beauty of the gradations mainly depend on it. All mechanical means to produce it will betray themselves;—regulated by any such principle, a blue sky would become a tea-tray! Nature distinctly rejects all that is mechanical: skill alone will enable the student to overcome this difficulty, in addition to observing its process by a professor.
Meditate well the mixture before applying it; then dash it on with the greatest decision,—always at once, and not backwards and forwards, and the greatest clearness will be the result.
The greater the diversity of colour, from the transparency of most colours in water, so much more will be its resemblance to nature.
Wiping out the lights, such as the foliage of trees, or any other forms required, is performed by first wetting the part or form to be taken out, with the brush—applied as it would be in painting—and, after the gloss on the water has subsided, with a clean piece of cotton rag or the pocket handkerchief, folded on the fore finger, the colour intended to be removed must be whisked out with some smart degree of force: and in the event of the light not coming out clean and sharp enough (from perhaps being too dry), the application of the India-rubber to the part will effect it. The colours intended are then laid over the parts so wiped out.