lay each in the white place left for it.
Not one grain of white, except that purposely left for the high lights,
must be visible when the work is done, even through a magnifying-glass,
so cunningly must you fit the edges to each other. Finally, take your
background colours, and put them on each side of the tree-trunk, fitting
them carefully to its edge.

Fine work you would make of this, wouldn't you, if you had not learned
to draw first, and could not now draw a good outline for the stem, much
less terminate a colour mass in the outline you wanted?

Your work will look very odd for some time, when you first begin to
paint in this way, and before you can modify it, as I shall tell you
presently how; but never mind; it is of the greatest possible importance
that you should practice this separate laying on of the hues, for all
good colouring finally depends on it. It is, indeed, often necessary,
and sometimes desirable, to lay one colour and form boldly over another:
thus, in laying leaves on blue sky, it is impossible always in large
pictures, or when pressed for time, to fill in the blue through the
interstices of the leaves; and the great Venetians constantly lay their
blue ground first, and then, having let it dry, strike the golden brown
over it in the form of the leaf, leaving the under blue to shine through
the gold, and subdue it to the olive green they want. But in the most
precious and perfect work each leaf is inlaid, and the blue worked round
it: and, whether you use one or other mode of getting your result, it is
equally necessary to be absolute and decisive in your laying the colour.
Either your ground must be laid firmly first, and then your upper colour
struck upon it in perfect form, for ever, thenceforward, unalterable; or
else the two colours must be individually put in their places, and led
up to each other till they meet at their appointed border, equally,
thenceforward, unchangeable. Either process, you see, involves
_absolute_ decision. If you once begin to slur, or change, or sketch, or
try this way and that with your colour, it is all over with it and with
you. You will continually see bad copyists trying to imitate the
Venetians, by daubing their colours about, and retouching, and
finishing, and softening: when every touch and every added hue only lead
them farther into chaos. There is a dog between two children in a
Veronese in the Louvre, which gives the copyist much employment. He has
a dark