colors
separately for each spot, and lay each in the white place left for it.
Not one grain of white, except that purposely left for the high lights,
must be visible when the work is done, even through a magnifying-glass,
so cunningly must you fit the edges to each other. Finally, take your
background colors, and put them on each side of the tree trunk, fitting
them carefully to its edge.

167. Fine work you would make of this, wouldn't you, if you had not
learned to draw first, and could not now draw a good outline for the
stem, much less terminate a color mass in the outline you wanted?

Your work will look very odd for some time, when you first begin to
paint in this way, and before you can modify it, as I shall tell you
presently how; but never mind; it is of the greatest possible importance
that you should practice this separate laying on of the hues, for all
good coloring finally depends on it. It is, indeed, often necessary, and
sometimes desirable, to lay one color and form boldly over another:
thus, in laying leaves on blue sky, it is impossible always in large
pictures, or when pressed for time, to fill in the blue through the
interstices of the leaves; and the great Venetians constantly lay their
blue ground first, and then, having let it dry, strike the golden brown
over it in the form of the leaf, leaving the under blue to shine through
the gold, and subdue it to the olive-green they want. But in the most
precious and perfect work each leaf is inlaid, and the blue worked round
it; and, whether you use one or other mode of getting your result, it is
equally necessary to be absolute and decisive in your laying the color.
Either your ground must be laid firmly first, and then your upper color
struck upon it in perfect form, forever, thenceforward, unalterable; or
else the two colors must be individually put in their places, and led up
to each other till they meet at their appointed border, equally,
thenceforward, unchangeable. Either process, you see, involves absolute
decision. If you once begin to slur, or change, or sketch, or try this
way and that with your color, it is all over with it and with you. You
will continually see bad copyists trying to imitate the Venetians, by
daubing their colors about, and retouching, and finishing, and
softening: when every touch and every added hue only lead them farther
into chaos. There is a dog between two children in a Veronese in the
Louvre, which gives the copyists