When your outline is drawn in, dip your largest brush in clear water, and go over the whole surface of your paper, then place a piece of blotting-paper over the paper to soak up the water, leaving it simply damp, not wet.
If you are using tube colors, have ready on a porcelain palette, or ordinary dinner-plate, these colors: crimson lake, cobalt blue, indigo, Prussian blue, and gamboge. Put in your lightest tints first, leaving the white paper for the highest light; then paint in your darker tints and shadows, and get the effect.
If your flower is what we call the johnny-jump-up, the lowest petal will be yellow. Paint this in with a light wash of gamboge, leaving, as we have said, the white paper for touches of high light. The two upper petals will probably be a deep claret-color; this is made by mixing crimson lake and cobalt blue, the crimson lake predominating. The two central petals may be a bluish lavender, and this color is made by mixing a little crimson lake with cobalt blue. Use plenty of water; but do not let it run, and keep the colors of the petals distinct.
Paint the stems and leaves, where they are a rich green, with a mixture of gamboge and Prussian blue, and where they appear gray as the light touches them, a pale wash of indigo will give the desired effect.
Keep your shadows broad and distinct, and your tints as flat as you can. Leave out details altogether in your first paintings, and add them afterward only when you can do so without spoiling the effect.
When a tinted background is desired, put it in quickly in a flat tint, before commencing the flowers. It is best not to bring the tint quite up to the outline, as a narrow edge of white left around the flower gives a pleasant, sketchy look to the painting.
Landscapes.
In your first studies from nature keep to simple subjects, and treat them simply, without any attempt at elaboration. Choose, for instance, a picturesque corner of an old fence, with perhaps a bit of field and sky for the background. Sketch in the principal features in the foreground in outline, and indicate the horizon, if it comes in the picture.
Penley says, in his “System of Water-Color Painting,” “White paper is too opaque to paint upon without some wash of color being first passed over it,” and he recommends a thin wash of yellow ochre and brown madder, which should be put all over the surface of the paper except on the high lights in the foreground, which are best left crisp and white.
Notwithstanding what Penley says in this matter, it must be borne in mind that some artists do not believe in successive washes, but claim that the color desired should be put upon the white paper at once.