Page:Drawing for Beginners.djvu/144

 From this example some people argue that all babies will swim as naturally as they will later walk and talk.

On that particular point I am not prepared to give an opinion, but this I do know, for it has been often proved: if we put a box of chalks into the hands of a small child of four or five, the child will as often as not use the colours rightly and naturally. I have seen paintings by tiny children as good as any done by practised artists. Give the child a string of beads, a coloured thread, and Baby will chalk these colours with astonishing ease. The shape may be funny, but the colour will be pure, fresh, and sweet. Which proves that the sense of colour is a natural sense.

It is a very stimulating thought that we are born with this delightful gift, which only needs a natural development.

As we grow older, and more diffident of ourselves, we seek out rules and hamper ourselves with stupid regulations. But if we merely ask ourselves a few simple guiding questions, such as, "What is the general colour of the thing that I wish to paint?" and keep our mind focused on that one thing, our troubles will melt away.

Each colour depends to a great extent on its surroundings.

There's Timmy, the tabby cat, for instance. What colour would you call his coat and eyes? "A buff fur striped with sharp black lines, and yellow eyes," you would most probably reply.

But look at Timmy lying on the summer grass. His buff and white fur reflects the green of the grass; his glossy black stripes fade in the sun like old silver, and deepen in shadow like the rich dark colour of the tree-bark; his eyes, most curious of all, empty into round pools of colourless light. Thinking of Timmy's colouring suggests another subject on which we have not time to dwell&mdash;the protective nature of colour. It also reminds us that colour is influenced by other surrounding colours.

"What is colour?" cries the young artist.

We say that black is black and white is white, that snow is