Page:Every Woman's Encyclopedia Volume 1.djvu/828

 THE ARTS 800 3.30. and again in the evening from 7 o'clock to 9 p.m., while on Saturdays work begins half an hour earlier and stops at noon. On sunny days in spring and summer animal painting classes are often carried on out of doors, on a pleasant, shady stretch of lawn just at the back of the Glass House; and a slenderly-built Arab, or fine, stalwart hunter, or a picturesque cart-horse will be tethered up between a couple of posts for a morning's sitting. Sometimes a village model can be mduced to pose in combination with the four-footed sitter, or a fellow-student Will don suitable attire to obhge. A most paintable effect is produced by a gallant knight in armour, his lance held at the hilt, bestriding a fine war horse. Sometimes a huntsman, his pink coat gleaming and making a glowing splash of colour in the sunshine, will be found by the chance visitor adorning the model's corner of the lawn, with a grateful and enthusiastic band of students painting around him. The Bushey Curriculum , Every available kind of equine sitter visits the Glass House studio in the course of a year, for Miss Kemp-Welch and her little army of students are highly popular with the country folk, who gladly provide models, which range from splendid shire horses and hunters to the humble costermonger's donkey with its foal. While thQ Bushey Art School is, first and foremost, a school for animal painting, a very high. standard of figure work is also attained to, for Miss Kemp-Welch very wisely insists on all students doing some work from the head or figure every day ; while many, who have no special leaning towards animal painting, come to work from the human model alone. Nothing, in her opinion, can replace the study of the human face and figure, and she will not allow specialising in animal painting in the student stage. While the ad- vanced classes in both animal and figure painting work entirely under her direction, the costume class and all the preliminary cla.sses are held by Mr. Roland Wheel- right, who has a iurprising knack of getting young students on in their work, and giving them a thoroughly good grounding in the first principles of art. One very popular and instructive feature of the school work at Bushey consists of the periodical " composition classes," wheii subjects are given, such as " Spring, ' " Labour," or " Hope," for instance, and the whole school is expected to make sketches embodying the idea suggested by the title. They are then passed up for general inspec- tion, and each one is criticised by Miss Kemp-Welch herself. Cost of Living for Students Then, again, from time to time — and more especially just after the vacations — Miss Kemp-Welch sees and criticises the students' independent outside work, a most encouraging and stimulating practice, which greatly helps their private efforts at picture- making. Living is very cheap in Bushey, and it is possible for a student to work there foi £6^ a year in decent comfort. This sum includes rooms, food, washing, school fees, and painting materials. There are a few residents at Bushey (who are all personally known to Miss Kemp- Welch) who will take lady students in as boarders at a reasonable charge. Most of the girls, however, live in furnished rooms in one or other of the cottages in the village. The charges for such accommodation vary from I OS. to 12s. a week for two rooms, with attendance ; or from 7s. to gs. a week for a single bed and sitting room combined, so that from i8s. to 25s. a week can be made, with strict economy, to cover board, lodging, washing, and attendance ; and some students have found it possible to manage on even a little less. On winter evenings the girl students naturally pay many visits to the lodgings of their friends, whose rooms almost invariably are made as home-like and artistic as only an art student knows how. There is a library, a reading-room, and a smoking-room attached to the school, and as plenty of musical and dramatic talent is, as a rule, to be found amongst the students, all sorts of concerts and entertainments are nimal painting class. In the summer, work becins as early as. 8 ocibci