way at the
edge.

When, however, you begin to cover complicated forms with the darker
colour, no rapidity will prevent the tint from drying irregularly as it
is led on from part to part. You will then find the following method
useful. Lay in the colour very pale and liquid; so pale, indeed, that
you can only just see where it is on the paper. Lead it up to all the
outlines, and make it precise in form, keeping it thoroughly wet
everywhere. Then, when it is all in shape, take the darker colour, and
lay some of it _into_ the middle of the liquid colour. It will spread
gradually in a branchy kind of way, and you may now lead it up to the
outlines already determined, and play it with the brush till it fills
its place well; then let it dry, and it will be as flat and pure as a
single dash, yet defining all the complicated forms accurately.

Having thus obtained the power of laying on a tolerably flat tint, you
must try to lay on a gradated one. Prepare the colour with three or four
teaspoonfuls of water; then, when it is mixed, pour away about
two-thirds of it, keeping a teaspoonful of pale colour. Sloping your
paper as before, draw two pencil lines all the way down, leaving a space
between them of the width of a square on your chess-board. Begin at the
top of your paper, between the lines; and having struck on the first
brushful of colour, and led it down a little, dip your brush deep in
water, and mix up the colour on the plate quickly with as much more
water as the brush takes up at that one dip: then, with this paler
colour, lead the tint farther down. Dip in water again, mix the colour
again, and thus lead down the tint, always dipping in water once between
each replenishing of the brush, and stirring the colour on the plate
well, but as quickly as you can. Go on until the colour has become so
pale that you cannot see it; then wash your brush thoroughly in water,
and carry the wave down a little farther with that, and then absorb it
with the dry brush, and leave it to dry.

If you get to the bottom of your paper before your colour gets pale, you
may either take longer paper, or begin, with the tint as it was when you
left off, on another sheet; but be sure to exhaust it to pure whiteness
at last. When all is quite dry, recommence at the top with another
similar mixture of colour, and go down in the same way. Then again, and
then again, and so continually until the colour at the top of the paper
is as dark as your ca