tler._]

=Drawing.=--Good work in portraiture depends on good drawing, just as
other work does. Don't think that because it is only a head you can
make it more easily than anything else. As in other kinds of work,
the drawing you should try for is the drawing of the proportions and
characteristic lines. Get the masses and the more important planes,
and don't try for details. You can get these afterwards, or leave them
out altogether, and they will not be missed if your work has been well
done.

Don't undertake too much in your work. Make up your mind how much you
can do well, and don't be too ambitious; the best painters who ever
lived have been content to work on a head and shoulders, and have made
masterpieces of such paintings. You may be content also. See how
little Velasquez could make a picture of! and notice also the placing
of the head, and the simplicity of mass, and of light and shade.

=Painting.=--Of course you can help your color with glazing and
scumbling, but work for simplicity first. It is not necessary to use
all sorts of processes; you can get fine results and admirable
training from portrait studies, and the more directly you do it, the
better the training will be.

Study the Portrait of Himself, by Albrecht Duerer. You will find no
affectation here; the most simple and direct brush-work only. You will
not be able to do this sort of thing, but that is no reason why you
should not try for it. It will depend on the brush-stroke. It implies
a precision of eye as well as of hand. It means drawing quite as much
as painting,--drawing in the painting. You will not get this great
precision; nevertheless, try for it, and get as near it as you can.
Don't try for too much cleverness; be content with good sincere study,
and the most direct expression of planes that you can give.

[Illustration: =Portrait of Himself.= _Velasquez._]

Let your brush follow lines of structure. Don't lay on paint across a
cheek, for instance. Notice the direction of the muscle fibre. It is
the line of contraction of the muscle which gives the anatomical
structure to a face. If your brush follows those, you will find that
it takes the most natural course of direction.

Do the same with the planes of the body and of the clothing. Note the
lines of action, and the brush-stroke will naturally follow them.

See that the whole form, and particularly the head, "constructs." The
head is round, more or less; it is not flat. The plane