complication of colour and tone. And
with a brush full of paint as your tool, some form of mass drawing must
be adopted, so that at the same time that the student is progressing
with line drawing, he should begin to accustom, himself to this other
method of seeing, by attempting very simple exercises in drawing with
the brush.

Most objects can be reduced broadly into three tone masses, the lights
(including the high lights), the half tones, and the shadows. And the
habit of reducing things into a simple equation of three tones as a
foundation on which to build complex appearances should early be sought
for.

[Sidenote: Exercise in Mass Drawing.]

Here is a simple exercise in mass drawing with the brush that is, as far
as I know, never offered to the young student. Select a simple object:
some of those casts of fruit hanging up that are common in art schools
will do. Place it in a strong light and shade, preferably by artificial
light, as it is not so subtle, and therefore easier; the light
coming from either the right or left hand, but not from in front. Try
and arrange it so that the tone of the ground of your cast comes about
equal to the half tones in the relief.

[Illustration: Plate XXIII.

SET OF FOUR PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE SAME PAINTING FROM A CAST IN DIFFERENT
STAGES

No. 1. Blocking out the shape of spaces to be occupied by masses.

No. 2. A middle tone having been scumbled over the whole, the lights are
now painted. Their shapes and the play of lost-and-foundness on their
edges being observed. Gradations are got by thinner paint, which is
mixed with the wet middle tone of the ground, and is darkened.]

[Illustration: Plate XXIV.

SET OF FOUR PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE SAME PAINTING FROM A CAST IN DIFFERENT
STAGES

No. 3. The same as the last, with the addition of the darks; variety
being got in the same way as in the case of the lights, only here the
thinner part is lighter, whereas in the case of the lights it was
darker.

No. 4. The finished work, refinements being added and mistakes
corrected.]

First draw in the outlines of the #masses# strongly in charcoal, noting
the shapes of the shadows carefully, taking great care that you get
their shapes blocked out in square lines in true proportion relative to
each other, and troubling about little else. Let this be a setting out
of the ground upon which you will afterwards express the form, rather
than a drawing--the same scaffolding, in fact, that you wer