of turning the paper upside down is to neutralise the increase
of darkness towards the bottom of the squares, which would otherwise
take place from the ponding of the colour.

Be resolved to use blotting-paper, or a piece of rag, instead of your
lips, to dry the brush. The habit of doing so, once acquired, will save
you from much partial poisoning. Take care, however, always to draw the
brush from root to point, otherwise you will spoil it. You may even wipe
it as you would a pen when you want it very dry, without doing harm,
provided you do not crush it upwards. Get a good brush at first, and
cherish it; it will serve you longer and better than many bad ones.

When you have done the squares all over again, do them a third time,
always trying to keep your edges as neat as possible. When your colour
is exhausted, mix more in the same proportions, two teaspoonfuls to as
much as you can grind with a drop; and when you have done the alternate
squares three times over, as the paper will be getting very damp, and
dry more slowly, begin on the white squares, and bring them up to the
same tint in the same way. The amount of jagged dark line which then
will mark the limits of the squares will be the exact measure of your
unskilfulness.

As soon as you tire of squares draw circles (with compasses); and then
draw straight lines irregularly across circles, and fill up the spaces
so produced between the straight line and the circumference; and then
draw any simple shapes of leaves, according to the exercise No. 2., and
fill up those, until you can lay on colour quite evenly in any shape you
want.

You will find in the course of this practice, as you cannot always put
exactly the same quantity of water to the colour, that the darker the
colour is, the more difficult it becomes to lay it on evenly. Therefore,
when you have gained some definite degree of power, try to fill in the
forms required with a full brush, and a dark tint, at once, instead of
laying several coats one over another; always taking care that the tint,
however dark, be quite liquid; and that, after being laid on, so much of
it is absorbed as to prevent its forming a black line at the edge as it
dries. A little experience will teach you how apt the colour is to do
this, and how to prevent it; not that it needs always to be prevented,
for a great master in water-colours will sometimes draw a firm outline,
when he _wants_ one, simply by letting the colour dry in this