STYLE OF BOUCHER.
To paint the style of Boucher (Cupids) you begin by transferring your design on the china.
Then you sketch with flesh No. 1 the lines of the face, and the fingers and toes. When this sketch is dry, the reflected lights are marked with yellow-brown, mixed with ivory yellow.
The local tint of flesh color is laid on immediately after, the same as in the preceding lesson; the dabbling evens the two colors placed side by side, and blends them one into the other. Let it dry, then heighten by half a tone the extremities of the hands, feet, knees, etc. Sketch in the hair and accessories, the clouds and background, while the local tint is drying.
Retouching. When the first painting has lost nearly all its moisture, return to it again; work the shadows by stippling some brown No. 17, mixed with sepia, yellow ochre, light grey, and a touch of blue-green for the transparent parts. Where the flesh is brown, the reflected lights are made with yellow ochre throughout, and the scale of browns is more used. A touch of violet of iron warms up the shadows, and approaches nearer to Vandyke brown in oils.
Flowers. To paint flowers well it is necessary that the drawing should be exceedingly correct and sober in its lines, for the tints having to be very light and very pure, too many pencil marks would injure the painting. The little details of the petals are done with the brush, without previous tracing. The pencil must only mark the leaf’s contour and central vein; the direction of the brush strokes is enough to indicate the smaller veins.
A general rule for the manipulation of the brush in flower painting may be laid down thus: The handling is always done the way of the petals, converging towards the center.
Leaves. Each plant possesses a particular kind of leaf, and even in the rose the leaves of different varieties are not alike. Thus, for the leaves of the Bengal rose, a semi bright tint, a shiny appearance without many veins, the young shoots tinged with carmine, or else purple mixed with silver yellow. The king’s rose: the leaves of this rose are of a darker green than the preceding; they are done with grass green No. 5, the edges of the older leaves become somewhat russet, the young shoots light green. Red rose: the leaves deep green, heightened with brown, the veins dark green No. 7, the serrations carmine red, the fading leaves have a reddish brown hue. Yellow roses: shiny leaves inclining to blue-green, retouched with grey, mixed with grass green; the deeper tints made with dark green No. 7. Do not use this last color too freely.