f the hard colors named in the note below[45] and try experiments
on their simple combinations, by mixing each color with every other. If
you like to do it in an orderly way, you may prepare a squared piece of
pasteboard, and put the pure colors in columns at the top and side; the
mixed tints being given at the intersections, thus (the letters standing
for colors):

b c d e f etc.
a a b a c a d a e a f
b -- b c b d b e b f
c -- -- c d c e c f
d -- -- -- d e d f
e -- -- -- -- e f
etc.

This will give you some general notion of the characters of mixed tints
of two colors only, and it is better in practice to confine yourself as
much as possible to these, and to get more complicated colors, either by
putting the third _over_ the first blended tint, or by putting the third
into its interstices. Nothing but watchful practice will teach you the
effects that colors have on each other when thus put over, or beside,
each other.

164. When you have got a little used to the principal combinations,
place yourself at a window which the sun does not shine in at,
commanding some simple piece of landscape: outline this landscape
roughly; then take a piece of white cardboard, cut out a hole in it
about the size of a large pea; and supposing R is the room, _a d_ the
window, and you are sitting at _a_, Fig. 29, hold this cardboard a
little outside of the window, upright, and in the direction _b d_,
parallel to the side of the window, or a little turned, so as to catch
more light, as at _a d_, never turned as at _c d_, or the paper will be
dark. Then you will see the landscape, bit by bit, through the circular
hole. Match the colors of each important bit as nearly as you can,
mixing your tints with white, beside the aperture. When matched, put a
touch of the same tint at the top of your paper, writing under it: "dark
tree color," "hill color," "field color," as the case may be. Then wash
the tint away from beside the opening, and the cardboard will be ready
to match another piece of the landscape.[46] When you have got the
colors of the principal masses thus indicated, lay on a piece of each in
your sketch in its right place, and then proceed to complete the sketch
in harmony with them, by your eye.

[Illustration: FIG. 29.]

165. In the course of your early experiments, you will be much struck by
two things