colour, one subduing the sky tone a little, the next drawing the
broken portions of the leaf, as at _c_, and carefully indicating the
greater darkness of the spot in the middle, where the under side of the
leaf is.

This is the perfect theory of the matter. In practice we cannot reach
such accuracy; but we shall be able to render the general look of the
foliage satisfactorily by the following mode of practice.

Gather a spray of any tree, about a foot or eighteen inches long. Fix it
firmly by the stem in anything that will support it steadily; put it
about eight feet away from you, or ten if you are far-sighted. Put a
sheet of not very white paper behind it, as usual. Then draw very
carefully, first placing them with pencil, and then filling them up with
ink, every leaf, mass and stalk of it in simple black profile, as you
see them against the paper: Fig. 8. is a bough of Phillyrea so drawn. Do
not be afraid of running the leaves into a black mass when they come
together; this exercise is only to teach you what the actual shapes of
such masses are when seen against the sky.

[Illustration: FIG. 8.]

Make two careful studies of this kind of one bough of every common
tree--oak, ash, elm, birch, beech, &c.; in fact, if you are good, and
industrious, you will make one such study carefully at least three times
a week, until you have examples of every sort of tree and shrub you can
get branches of. You are to make two studies of each bough, for this
reason--all masses of foliage have an upper and under surface, and the
side view of them, or profile, shows a wholly different organisation of
branches from that seen in the view from above. They are generally seen
more or less in profile, as you look at the whole tree, and Nature puts
her best composition into the profile arrangement. But the view from
above or below occurs not unfrequently, also, and it is quite necessary
you should draw it if you wish to understand the anatomy of the tree.
The difference between the two views is often far greater than you could
easily conceive. For instance, in Fig. 9., _a_ is the upper view, and
_b_ the profile, of a single spray of Phillyrea. Fig. 8. is an
intermediate view of a larger bough; seen from beneath, but at some
lateral distance also.

[Illustration: FIG. 9.]

When you have done a few branches in this manner, take one of the
_drawings_, and put it first a yard away from you, then a yard and a
half, then two yards; observe ho