them. Sometimes you want the drapery as a
background, to give color or line; and yet to have also marked surface
qualities (texture), would take from the effect of those qualities in
the other objects of the group.

As to color, in the same way you should have all sorts of colors; but
see to it that the colors are good,--in themselves "good color," not
harsh nor crude. It does you no good as a student to learn how to
express bad color. Neither is it good training for you, in studying
how to represent what you see, to have to change bad color in your
group into good color in your picture.

Good useful drapery does not mean either large pieces, or pieces with
much variety of color in one piece; on the contrary, you should avoid
spotty or prominent design in it. Still, the more kinds you have, the
more you can vary your work.

If your drapery is a little strong in color, you can always make it
more quiet by washing or fading it to any extent. There is very little
material which is absolutely fast color. But when it is so, and the
color is too strong, don't use it.

Don't scorn old and faded cloth, especially silk and velvet, or plush.
The fact that it would look out of place on furniture or as a dress
does not imply that it may not be beautiful as a background or as a
foreground color. These old and faded materials furnish some of the
most useful things you can have; a fact the reverse of what is true in
general of other still-life things.

=The Use of Still Life.=--There is no way in which you can better
study the principles of composition than by the use of still life. The
fact that you can bring together a large number of objects of any
color and form, and can arrange and rearrange them, study the effect
and result before painting, and be working with actual objects and not
by merely drawing them, gives a positiveness and actuality to
composition that is of the greatest service to you. You can use (and
should at times) the whole side or corner of a room, and so practise
composition on the large scale, or you can make a small group on a
table. That you are using furniture and drapery or vases, flowers, and
books, instead of men and women, does not affect the seriousness and
usefulness of the problem; for the principles of composition and color
do not have to do with the materials which you use to bring about the
effect, but the effect itself.

It is practically impossible for the student and the amateur to make