mount of material you can store up in this way is immense, to say
nothing of the training it gives you in the use of your eyes, and in
the practice of selection of motives for work. Schemes of color or
composition are not usually deliberately invented within the painter's
brain. They are in most cases the result of some suggestion from a
chance effect noticed and remembered or jotted down, and afterwards
worked out. Nature is the great suggester. It is the artist's business
to catch the suggestion and make it his own. For nature seldom works
out her own suggestions. The effect as nature gives it is either not
complete, or is so evanescent as to be uncopyable. But the habit of
constant receptivity on the part of the artist makes nature an
infinite mine of possibilities to him.

[Illustration: =The Canal.= _Burleigh Parkhurst._
Effect of diffused out-door light to be compared with effect of studio
light in "Bohemian Woman," and artificial light in "Woman Sewing by
Lamplight."]

=Perception.=--Only by continually observing and judging of contrasts
and relations can the eye be trained to perceive subtle distinctions;
yet it must be so trained, for all good work is dependent on these
distinctions.

=Effects of Light.=--It is important to study the different qualities
of light. Take, for instance, the difference of character on a sunny
day and on a gray day. On the former, fine distinctions of color are
less pronounced; they are lost in the contrasts of sunlight and
shadow. On a gray day the light is diffused; contrast is less, but the
finer distinctions are more marked. For the study of the subtleties of
color choose a gray day.

So, too, is the difference marked between the general light of
out-doors and the more concentrated light of the house. The pitch is
different. Outside, even in a dark day, the general character of light
is clearer, more full, than in-doors.

There is nothing possible under the open sky like the strong contrasts
you get from a single window in an otherwise unlighted room.

Compare, for instance, the character of the light and shade as shown
in the illustrations on pages 156 and 159. The one is the diffused,
out-of-door light, the other that from a studio window. The character
of the subject has nothing to do with this quality. The head would
have less of sharpness and contrast in the open air, and more
reflected light.

Other differences to be studied as to quality of the light in the
manne