BRUSHES page 69

called grounding-brushes, and are useful for covering large spaces, wither in ground-laying, tinting, or painting. (Cut No. 12.)

For applying delicate tints of color, a tinting-brush should be employed. (Cut No. 13.) These are very thin, flat brushes, and work very smoothly. Being thin, they do not absorb or retain any more color than is required, and are to be recommended for this purpose beyond all other brushes. They come in a half a dozen sizes or widths, with metal ferrules and polished wooden handles. They are made of Russia sable, and are delightful to use.

A similar brush is an elastic tinting-brush, and is desirable as being just one-half the price of a Russia sable brush. These elastic brushes are really very good, and quite satisfactory for tinting ; and if they have not so much spring as the Russia sable, have quite enough for the purpose for which they are made and required.

The spring or elasticity of a brush is a test of its quality. A good brush, when we with color and pressed on the object or material to receive the color, will spring back and resume its normal condition immediately upon being removed. Bad brushes remain at the angle at which they are used.

While giving these suggestive hints regarding brushes, their use is by no means compulsory. Some always prefer a Short brush to a long one,

SETTING THE PALETTE page 45

taste in selection, they are seldom used without some slight modification. They mix well with the yellows, one particularly -- yellow for mixing -- forming and especially agreeable line of warm tints. With yellow for mixing, apple green, chrome green, emerald stone green , brown green and back green No. 7, and their various combinations, any desirable scale of greens may be obtained, from the young and tender shades of the early shoots of spring, through the full, brilliant, vivid tones of summer foliage, into the successive shades of olives and glowing russets of autumn, to the low and mellow tones of the sombre evergreens of winter.

Brown is used to tone vivid greens to olive ; carmine or ruby purple, applied in a very think wash over the green, will also reduce the color considerably. Violet of iron is also very useful used in conjunction with greens, giving a degree of warmth frequently required in floral designs. If the green be too yellow, a thin wash of blue, or one of the blue greens, may rectify it. If too blue, a wash of yellow brown or chestnut brown will give it the necessary warmth and richness.

Brown green, an invaluable color as it comes from the tube, is seldom qualified by any other, and is more frequently used pure than other wise.

As a general thing, the greens are very pliable