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from the tube are not right for any color you see in nature however
you think they look. But beginners are very apt to think that if they
cannot get the color they want, they can get it in another kind of
tube. This is a mistake. The tubes of color that are actually
necessary for almost every possible tint or combination in nature are
very few. But they must be used to advantage. Now and then one finds
his palette lacking, and must add to it; but after one has
experimented a while he settles down to some eight or ten colors
which will do almost everything, and two or three more that will do
what remains. When you work out-of-doors you may find that more
variety will help you and gain time for you; that several blues and
some secondaries it is well to have in tubes besides the regular
outfit. Still even then, when you have got beyond the first frantic
gropings, you will be surprised to see yourself constantly using
certain colors and neglecting others. These others, then, you do not
need, and you may leave them out of your box.

=Too Many Tubes.=--If you have too many colors, they are a trouble
rather than a help to you. You must carry them all in your mind, and
you do not so soon get to thinking of the color in nature and taking
up the paint from different parts of your palette instinctively--which
means that you are gaining command of it. Never put a new color on
your palette unless you feel the actual need of it, or have a special
reason for it. Better get well acquainted with the regular colors you
have, and have only as many as you can handle well.

=Mixing.=--Use some system in mixing your paint. Have your palette set
the same way always, so that your brush can find the color without
having to hunt for it. Have a reasonable way too of taking up your
color before you mix it. Don't always begin with the same one. Is the
tint light or dark? strong or delicate? What is the prevailing color
in it? Let these things affect the sequence of bringing the colors
together for mixing. Let these things have to do also with the
proportionate quantity of each. Suppose you have a heavy dark green to
mix, what will you take first? Make a dash at the white, put it in the
middle of the palette, and then tone it down to the green? How much
paint would you have to take before you got your color? Yet I've seen
this very thing done, and others equally senseless. What is the green?
Dark. Bluish or warm? Will reddish or yellowish blue d