Page:Cyclopedia of Painting-Armstrong, George D (1908).djvu/238

230 in it will thus fall on the surface in a variety of small dots. Great care on the part of the painter is necessary at this stage, so as to distribute the spots equally; otherwise, whilst one part of the work will be left only partially spotted, others may be so thickly covered that the drops will become confluent and not be visible as spots afterwards.

When this work has become sufficiently dry, the sprinkling may be repeated by dipping the brush into a color rather deeper than the ground; it may be Indian red, with sufficient white to give it a body. The sprinkling with this color must be done very sparingly and rather more in some parts than others.

The last sprinkling is to be done with a clean small tool dipped in white paint only and the spots are to be very fine; as much color, therefore, as possible should previously be removed from the brush, and it will be found that, when so little color remains in the brush that it will scarcely mark a board when rubbed on it, there will still be enough to produce the fine dots when struck against the stick. The stick should be held at some distance from the work, as the farther away the finer will be the dots. In imitating some specimens, the three layers of spots are laid on and, in addition, a narrow opaque white vein is to be run amongst the spots; from this transparent threads are drawn in various directions; these cannot be added until the whole of the sprinkling is quite dry and hard; they must then be formed with a sable pencil and the threads drawn out with a feather.

Egyptian Porphyry. The ground for this rare and beautiful marble is composed of vermilion and white lead. A tint of Indian red and lake is then sprinkled over the ground by striking the handle of the brush containing the color against a stick, and turning the wrist whilst striking; some of the dots will thus become elliptical instead of circular. The sprinkling of the brush must be spread in every