has an even,
smooth surface. Let the color become nearly dry, then proceed to dab it
all over with the washleather, held on the end of the finger, breathing
on the slide when necessary, in order to keep it sufficiently moist.

This process must be continued carefully until the whole painted surface
is perfectly even and shows no mark of the brush, and only sufficient
paint must be left on to give a blue tint.

You must always remember that if too darkly painted the pictures will be
too opaque. Clouds can be put in nicely also with the bit of
washleather, but extra work of this sort is hardly worth while.

Then proceed to tint the other portions of the pictures with suitable
colors, doing one color at a time right through the set of slides, but
after applying each color, immediately dab with the washleather, to
render the color even and light.

You will find that by keeping to one color at a time you will get along
much quicker, and will also make the pictures more uniform.

When you have completely tinted all the pictures and "dabbed" all the
colored portions, you may then go over them all again and shade them up
where required with rather stronger colors, taking care, however, not to
overdo this.

You will find for faces yellow, with a very slight addition of crimson,
answers the best. It may not look all right on the slide, but it will
when thrown on the sheet.

You will need to consider the effect of the various colors, as some show
much more strongly than others. The next process is to varnish the
glasses to render them transparent.

With most color boxes for painting magic lantern slides a bottle of
varnish for this purpose is supplied, which answers fairly well. It has
to be painted on, after the slides are thoroughly dry, with a large
camel's-hair brush.

Lay one coat on by drawing the brush right across from one side to the
other, taking care that the lines of varnish so deposited slightly
over-lap one another. When this coat of varnish is perfectly dry and
hard, another and sometimes even a third coat must be applied, and it is
best to lay it on at right angles to the previous coat, so that all the
surface is sure to be covered.

Make each coat as thin as possible, and to facilitate this keep the
brush soft by occasionally applying a little turpentine to it. This,
however, is a slow and tantalizing process of varnishing, and there is
an easier and better one. Procure a bottle of Canada balsam in be