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.
OF TINTS.
Making good Tints has ever been a matter of extreme difficulty, great perseverance, and too often entire loss of time; and, in the event of success occasionally attending the student's exertions, it is a thousand to one he never gets them twice alike; for that which is done by accident cannot be repeated. The very difficulty attending them, from want of knowledge of those colours that blend well and harmonize in their natures, and the many requisite to charge the memory with, renders them so easily forgotten, that few but professors ever achieve the object sought.