always kept in mind.

=Complex Portraits.=--It is often possible to pose your model so as to
bring out some characteristic occupation. This is often done in
portraits of distinguished men. Such a treatment gives opportunity for
composition both of the figure and of the various objects which may
make up the background.

In such pictures you should study arrangement of line and mass, to
make the thing aesthetically interesting as well as interesting as a
portrait. Composition in mass,--the consideration of the head and
shoulders in relation to the space of the canvas,--is necessary in the
simplest head; but as soon as the canvas takes in a representation of
action on the part of the figure, line and movement must be
considered, as was done so beautifully in Whistler's portrait. In this
the study of composition is your problem. You may study it all the
time and in every picture you do, but it should be worked out before
you begin to paint.

Plan your canvas carefully always. Know just where everything is
coming. When you leave things to chance, you are pretty sure to have
trouble later.

=Portraits Good Training.=--I would not have you undertake to paint a
portrait rashly. You should know what you are to expect. If you are
not pretty sure of your drawing, and of the first principles of seeing
color in nature, and of representing it on canvas, you are likely to
get discouraged. Particularly if a friend poses for you, you may
expect disappointment on both sides. Drawing a head from the life is a
very different thing from drawing an inanimate object which will stay
in one position as long as you can pay the rent. So in the painting of
it, too, the color itself is alive. Flesh is something very elusive to
see the color of. And when you find that just as you begin to get
things well under way, or are in a particularly tight place, just at
that moment your model must rest, you must stop while the position is
changed and gotten back to again; then you will begin to realize that
"_la nature ne s'arrete pas_."

I would have you know all this, I say, before you begin on your first
portrait; but, nevertheless, if you can get a start at it you will
find it extremely good practice. The very difficulties bring more
definitely to you the real problems of painting. The fact that it is
really the representation of something which has life has an interest
quite of its own. The constant change of position on the part of the
model wil