your
paint. Don't use less paint than you need. Mix an ample brushful and
put it on; then mix another, and use judgment as to how much you
should use each time. The variety of tone and value which comes of
mixing new color for every touch of the brush is in itself a charm in
a painting, aside from the greater truth you are likely to get by it.

[Illustration: =Good Bock.= _Manet._
To illustrate direct and solid painting.]

=Corrections.=--As far as you can, make corrections by over-painting
when the paint is dry, or nearly so. When I say don't work into wet
color to correct, I do not mean that you are never to do so, but that
to do it too much is likely to get your work muddy and pasty. Of
course it is almost impossible to avoid doing so sometimes, but when
you do, do it with deliberation. Don't lose your head and pile wet
paint on wet paint in the vain hope of getting the color by force of
piling it on. You will only get it worse and worse. Get it as nearly
right as you can. If it is hopeless, scrape it off clean, and mix a
fresh tint. If it is as near right as you can see to mix it now, go
ahead; and put a better color on that place to-morrow when it is dry,
if you can.

=Keep at it.=--But above all don't be permanently satisfied with the
almost. Don't be afraid to put paint over dry paint till it is right.
Work at it day after day. Let the paint get thick if it will, if only
you get the thing right. The secret of getting it right is to keep at
it, and be satisfied with nothing less than the best you can do. When
you can see nothing wrong you can do no better. But as long as your
eye will recognize a difference between what is on the canvas and what
ought to be there, you have not done your best, and you are shirking
if you stop. Never call a thing done as long as you can see something
wrong about it. No matter what any one else says, your work must come
up _at least_ to the standard of what you yourself can see.

=Loose Painting.=--Sometimes it is necessary to lay on paint very
loosely in order to get vibration of warm and cool color or of pure
pigment in the same brush-stroke, or to let the under paint show
somewhat through the loose texture of the paint over it. Too much of
this sort of thing is not to be desired, but its effect in the right
place is not to be obtained in any other way. The paint may be dragged
over the canvas with a long brush charged with color more or less
thoroughly mixed, as seems most e