Page:Embroidery and Fancy Work.djvu/119

Rh the ease with which decorative designs may be adapted to the use of the amateur.

It can be used for a tile or small plaque or plate. And just here perhaps is a good time to say that it is not necessary always to buy new china to begin painting on. Cups and saucers and plates that have been in use for years may be successfully decorated so long as they are not flawed in any way, and a first attempt at this design may as well be painted on a tea plate as on anything else. When finished it makes a pretty ornament when hung up. Transfer or sketch your design as previously directed. Have the horizon line a little above the middle of the plate. Have ready on your palette, some sky blue, mixed as for grounding, and also some gray, formed by mixing apple green and carmine, using rather more carmine than green. Paint the sky over as if for grounding, using the sky blue for the upper part, and the gray for the lower, taking care to put on the blue more thinly as you approach the gray. If you wish clouds, wipe them out very quickly with a cloth, and then dabble the whole exactly as you would a ground tint. You can paint shadows to your clouds with a gray made of ivory black and sky blue, adding, if you wish, a little ivory yellow for the lighter parts. When done, the blue should seem to melt into the gray, giving to the lower parts of the sky a receding appearance. This is called the distance. You may, since the landscape is so conventional, omit the clouds if you choose. Now carefully clean the plate (after it is thoroughly dry) below the horizon line of all color except the lines of the design, and paint in your horizon line with ivory black. Use a fine pointed brush and make the lines as fine as possible, as much of the beauty of your plate depends on this being delicately done. While you are waiting for the sky to dry you can be painting the foreground. The grassy hill must first be washed over with yellow