Leave the white china for the high lights and the white snow on the roof of the castle, on the trees, and here and there on the ground.
Paint the castle with neutral gray and yellow ochre mixed with turpentine and fat oil, and its windows with brown No. 4, using the color as it comes from the tube. Now allow the plate to dry and then have it fired, after which mix carnation No. 1 with clove oil and turpentine, and touch up the sky and reflections on the ice, using the stipple if necessary; then mix light sky-blue with clove oil and turpentine and paint the sky where that color is required and the light shadows on the snow; then take yellow ochre for portions of the trees, places in the foreground, and touching up the castle; mix this color with fat-oil and turpentine.
Again strengthen the trees and other places, where the painting requires it, with brown No. 4, unmixed, except with a little turpentine when necessary; for the last touches mix relief-white with fat oil and clean turpentine, using the horn-palette knife always when mixing the white; this is to be laid on, in little raised places, where the snow is whitest on the ground and where the snow has lodged in the trees.
Now inclose the snow scene with a gilt band, using the stipple to make an uneven edge of gilt on the surrounding white rim; the gold next to the picture must be perfectly smooth and even; put this on with your fine long-haired brush; then make a similar band on the edge of the plate and it will be finished and ready for its last firing.
Almost any snow landscape with a sunset sky may be painted in this way.
Often you can find Christmas cards which will furnish very good copies.
How to Paint a Head on China.
Select a pretty copy from some photograph, as in Fig. 185; very carefully trace the head on a plate and go over the lines with Indian ink; next give the plate another wash with turpentine, to remove all remains of the color from the transfer-paper; then mix thoroughly two parts of carnation No. 2 with one part of ivory-yellow, adding a little turpentine and clove oil; give the face and neck a wash with this color and touch up the cheeks with carnation No. 1 mixed with clove oil and turpentine; now lay on the shadows with neutral gray, five parts, mixed with deep chrome-green, one part, using clove oil and turpentine in mixing the colors; last, the deepest shadows with brown No. 4, two parts, to one of ivory-black, mixed together with clove oil and turpentine, and immediately before any of the paint dries use the stipple to blend the colors, making the face round out and have the blending soft and true to nature; set your copy before you and try to have the shadows on the face you paint correspond exactly with those in the copy.
Now leave the face and neck, and place some brown No. 4 on the tile; do not mix it with anything; use it as it comes from the tube, dipping your brush in turpentine when it becomes necessary to thin the paint a little; with this paint the shading of the hair and follow with your brush, as nearly as possible, the sway of the masses. That finished, paint the eyes, eyebrows, and nostrils with brown No. 4 and ivory-black mixed together as they come from the tubes, using when necessary a little turpentine; then mix a little carnation No. 1 with fat oil for the lips. Next turn your attention to the drapery; shade the white material with gray No. 1, unmixed, and gray No. 2 for the deeper shadows, mixed with fat oil and turpentine.