picture, and the only way to learn to paint flowers is to paint
flowers.

=General Principles Hold Always.=--Still, the principles of all
painting hold here as elsewhere, and what is said of painting in
general will have its application to flowers.

Paint flowers because you love them; and if you love them, love them
enough to study patiently to express the qualities most worth
painting, even if there be difficulties.

=Details Again.=--Don't make too much of unimportant things. The whole
is more than the part; the flower than the petal. Of course you can't
paint a flower without painting the petals, but you need not paint the
petals so that you can't see anything else. If the character of the
flower as a whole is to be seen at a glance without the emphasis of
any special petal, suggest the petals only. If the petal is important
to the expression of character, then paint it; and if you do, paint it
well. Use your judgment; make the less expressive of the greater, or
do not paint it at all.

=Colors.=--Colors and tints in flowers are always more rather than
less subtle than you think them. If you have a doubt, make it more
delicate--give delicacy the benefit of the doubt. Still, flowers are
never weak in color. Subtle as they are, it is the very subtlety of
strength. Black will be the most useless color of your palette. Make
your grays by mixing your richer colors. A gray in a flower is shadow
on rich color, and it must not be painted by negation of color, but by
refinement of color.

=Sketches.=--Make sketches of flowers constantly. Try to carry the
painting of a single flower or of a group as far as you can in an
hour. Practise getting as much of the effect of detail as possible
with as little actual painting of it, and then apply this to your
picture.

Get to know your work in studies and sketches, and you will work
better in more difficult combinations.

When you have, as you generally will have, still-life accessories to
your flowers, rub in quickly the color and values of the vase or what
not first, but leave the painting of it till the flowers are done. It
will be a more patient sitter than they.

Apply the ways of painting spoken of with reference to still life to
the sketching of flowers. Either rub in quickly a _frottee_ and then
paint solidly into that, or work frankly and solidly but deliberately
to render the characteristic qualities. When you sketch flowers don't
take too many at a time; calculat