he surface as it dries, has
darkened and yellowed the surface greatly; while the small amount of oil
at the thin end has not darkened it to any extent.

Claude Monet evidently knew this, and got over the difficulty by
painting on an absorbent canvas, which sucks the surplus oil out from
below and thus prevents its coming to the surface and discolouring the
work in time. When this thick manner of painting is adopted, an
absorbent canvas should always be used. It also has the advantage of
giving a dull dry surface of more brilliancy than a shiny one.

Although not so much as with painting, varieties of texture enter into
drawings done with any of the mediums that lend themselves to mass
drawing; charcoal, conte crayon, lithographic chalk, and even red chalk
and lead pencil are capable of giving a variety of textures, governed
largely by the surface of the paper used. But this is more the province
of painting than of drawing proper, and charcoal, which is more painting
than drawing, is the only medium in which it can be used with much
effect.

[Sidenote: Variety of Edges.]

There is a very beautiful rhythmic quality in the play from softness to
sharpness on the edges of masses. A monotonous sharpness of edge is
hard, stern, and unsympathetic. This is a useful quality at times,
particularly in decorative work, where the more intimate sympathetic
qualities are not so much wanted, and where the harder forms go better
with the architectural surroundings of which your painted decoration
should form a part. On the other hand, a monotonous softness of edge is
very weak and feeble-looking, and too entirely lacking in power to be
desirable. If you find any successful work done with this quality of
edge unrelieved by any sharpnesses, it will depend on colour, and not
form, for any qualities it may possess.

Some amount of softness makes for charm, and is extremely popular: "#I
do# like that because it's so nice and soft" is a regular show-day
remark in the studio, and is always meant as a great compliment, but is
seldom taken as such by the suffering painter. But a balance of these
two qualities playing about your contours produces the most delightful
results, and the artist is always on the look out for such variations.
He seldom lets a sharpness of edge run far without losing it
occasionally. It may be necessary for the hang of the composition that
some leading edges should be much insisted on. But even here a
monotonous sha