ble in giving depth to
shadow; but it requires great patience and delicacy of hand to do this
properly. You will find much of this kind of work in the grounds and
shadows of William Hunt's drawings.[14]

69. As you get used to the brush and color, you will gradually find out
their ways for yourself, and get the management of them. And you will
often save yourself much discouragement by remembering what I have so
often asserted,--that if anything goes wrong, it is nearly sure to be
refinement that is wanting, not force; and connection, not alteration.
If you dislike the state your drawing is in, do not lose patience with
it, nor dash at it, nor alter its plan, nor rub it desperately out, at
the place you think wrong; but look if there are no shadows you can
gradate more perfectly; no little gaps and rents you can fill; no forms
you can more delicately define: and do not _rush_ at any of the errors
or incompletions thus discerned, but efface or supply slowly, and you
will soon find your drawing take another look. A very useful expedient
in producing some effects, is to wet the paper, and then lay the color
on it, more or less wet, according to the effect you want. You will soon
see how prettily it gradates itself as it dries; when dry, you can
reinforce it with delicate stippling when you want it darker. Also,
while the color is still damp on the paper, by drying your brush
thoroughly, and touching the color with the brush so dried, you may take
out soft lights with great tenderness and precision. Try all sorts of
experiments of this kind, noticing how the color behaves; but
remembering always that your final results must be obtained, and can
only be obtained, by pure work with the point, as much as in the pen
drawing.

70. You will find also, as you deal with more and more complicated
subjects, that Nature's resources in light and shade are so much richer
than yours, that you cannot possibly get all, or anything like all, the
gradations of shadow in any given group. When this is the case,
determine first to keep the broad masses of things distinct: if, for
instance, there is a green book, and a white piece of paper, and a black
inkstand in the group, be sure to keep the white paper as a light mass,
the green book as a middle tint mass, the black inkstand as a dark mass;
and do not shade the folds in the paper, or corners of the book, so as
to equal in depth the darkness of the inkstand. The great difference
between the