rying to do as much as you possibly can at once, and
to get a habit of expedition and decision; laying more colour again and
again into the tints as they dry, using every expedient which your
practice has suggested to you of carrying out your chiaroscuro in the
manageable and moist material, taking the colour off here with the dry
brush, scratching out lights in it there with the wooden handle of the
brush, rubbing it in with your fingers, drying it off with your sponge,
&c. Then, when the colour is in, take your pen and mark the outline
characters vigorously, in the manner of the Liber Studiorum. This kind
of study is very convenient for carrying away pieces of effect which
depend not so much on refinement as on complexity, strange shapes of
involved shadows, sudden effects of sky, &c.; and it is most useful as a
safeguard against any too servile or slow habits which the minute
copying may induce in you; for although the endeavour to obtain velocity
merely for velocity's sake, and dash for display's sake, is as baneful
as it is despicable; there _are_ a velocity and a dash which not only
are compatible with perfect drawing, but obtain certain results which
cannot be had otherwise. And it is perfectly safe for you to study
occasionally for speed and decision, while your continual course of
practice is such as to ensure your retaining an accurate judgment and a
tender touch. Speed, under such circumstances, is rather fatiguing than
tempting; and you will find yourself always beguiled rather into
elaboration than negligence.

[Illustration: FIG. 21.]

Fourthly. You will find it of great use, whatever kind of landscape
scenery you are passing through, to get into the habit of making
memoranda of the shapes of shadows. You will find that many objects of
no essential interest in themselves, and neither deserving a finished
study, nor a Dureresque one, may yet become of singular value in
consequence of the fantastic shapes of their shadows; for it happens
often, in distant effect, that the shadow is by much a more important
element than the substance. Thus, in the Alpine bridge, Fig. 21., seen
within a few yards of it, as in the figure, the arrangement of timbers
to which the shadows are owing is perceptible; but at half a mile's
distance, in bright sunlight, the timbers would not be seen; and a good
painter's expression of the bridge would be merely the large spot, and
the crossed bars, of pure grey; wholly without indicati