and keep the planes simple
and well defined. Draw all characteristic details, but only the most
important, nearly as if it were not to be painted, but were to remain
a drawing.

Fix this drawing with fixative and an atomizer.

In beginning with paint go over the drawing with a thin _frottee_
which shall re-enforce the drawing with color. You may do this with
one color, making a monochrome painting very thin, leaving the canvas
bare for the lights. Many of the best painters lay in all pictures
this way. What color is to be used is a matter for consideration. It
should be one so sympathetic to the coloring of the whole picture that
if it is left without any other paint over it in places it will still
look all right. Raw umber is a good color, or raw umber modified with
burnt sienna and black. You can make a mixture that seems right. This
establishes your larger values, and gives you something better than a
bare canvas, and something with which you can have a more just idea of
the effect of each touch of color you put on.

If there is much variety of color in the various objects of your
composition, it is better to make your _frottee_ suggest the different
colors. Instead of making a monochrome _frottee_, rub in each object
with a thin mixture, approximating the color and value, but not solid,
nor as strong as it will become when painted, of course. Nevertheless,
you can get in this first rubbing in, a strong effect, which at a
distance has a very solid look, though the relations are not so
carefully studied. When you come to put on solid color with this sort
of an under-painting, it is easy to judge pretty closely of color as
well as light-and-shade relations, and you can work more frankly into
it.

Into this painting, when it is dry, you may begin to paint with body
color, beginning with the true color and value of the lights, and
working down through the half darks into the darks. Paint the
background pretty carefully as to color and value, but loosely as to
handling. Paint slowly, deliberately, and thoughtfully. There is no
need to pile up masses of wrong color. You should try to be sure of
the color before you lay it on. Study the color in the group, mix on
the palette, and compare them. Think at least two minutes for every
one minute of actually laying on paint. You save time in the end by
being deliberate and by working thoughtfully. Put on color firmly and
with a full brush, but there is no need to load color