h the student many
of the rudimentary essentials of painting, such elementary things as how
to lay a tone, how to manage a brush, how to resolve appearances into a
simple structure of tones, and how to manipulate your paint so as to
express the desired shape. This elementary paint drawing is, as far as I
know, never given as an exercise, the study of drawing at present being
confined to paper and charcoal or chalk mediums. Drawing in charcoal is
the nearest thing to this "paint drawing," it being a sort of mixed
method, half line and half mass drawing. But although allied to
painting, it is a very different thing from expressing form with paint,
and no substitute for some elementary exercise with the brush. The use
of charcoal to the neglect of line drawing often gets the student into a
sloppy manner of work, and is not so good a training to the eye and hand
in clear, definite statement. Its popularity is no doubt due to the fact
that you can get much effect with little knowledge. Although this
painting into a middle tone is not by any means the only method of
painting, I do feel that it is the best method for studying form
expression with the brush.

But, when you come to colour, the fact of the opaque middle tone (or
half tone) being first painted over the whole will spoil the clearness
and transparency of your shadows, and may also interfere with the
brilliancy of the colour in the lights. When colour comes to be
considered it may be necessary to adopt many expedients that it is as
well not to trouble too much about until a further stage is reached. But
there is no necessity for the half tone to be painted over the shadows.
In working in colour the half tone or middle tone of the lights can be
made, and a middle tone of the shadows, and these two first painted
separately, the edges where they come together being carefully studied
and finished. Afterwards the variety of tone in the lights and the
shadows can be added. By this means the difference in the quality of the
colour between lights and shadows is preserved. This is an important
consideration, as there is generally a strong contrast between them, the
shadows usually being warm if the lights are cool and vice versa; and
such contrasts greatly affect the vitality of colouring.

Try always to do as much as possible with one stroke of the brush; paint
has a vitality when the touches are deft, that much handling and
continual touching kills. Look carefully at the s