low[238] and try experiments on
their simple combinations, by mixing each colour with every other. If
you like to do it in an orderly way, you may prepare a squared piece of
pasteboard, and put the pure colours in columns at the top and side;
the mixed tints being given at the intersections, thus (the letters
standing for colours):

b c d e f &c.

a ab ac ad ae af
b -- bc bd be bf
c -- -- cd ce cf
d -- -- -- de df
e -- -- -- -- ef
&c.

This will give you some general notion of the characters of mixed tints
of two colours only, and it is better in practice to confine yourself as
much as possible to these, and to get more complicated colours, either
by putting a third _over_ the first blended tint, or by putting the
third into its interstices. Nothing but watchful practice will teach you
the effects that colours have on each other when thus put over, or
beside, each other.

[Illustration: FIG. 29.]

When you have got a little used to the principal combinations, place
yourself at a window which the sun does not shine in at, commanding some
simple piece of landscape; outline this landscape roughly; then take a
piece of white cardboard, cut out a hole in it about the size of a large
pea; and supposing _R_ is the room, _a d_ the window, and you are
sitting at _a_, Fig. 29., hold this cardboard a little outside of the
window, upright, and in the direction _b d_, parallel a little turned to
the side of the window, or so as to catch more light, as at _a d_, never
turned as at _c d_, or the paper will be dark. Then you will see the
landscape, bit by bit, through the circular hole. Match the colours of
each important bit as nearly as you can, mixing your tints with white,
beside the aperture. When matched, put a touch of the same tint at the
top of your paper, writing under it: "dark tree colour," "hill colour,"
"field colour," as the case may be. Then wash the tint away from beside
the opening, and the cardboard will be ready to match another piece of
the landscape.[239] When you have got the colours of the principal
masses thus indicated, lay on a piece of each in your sketch in its
right place, and then proceed to complete the sketch in harmony with
them, by your eye.

In the course of your early experiments, you will be much struck by two
things: the first, the inimitable brill