WATER COLOR PAINTING.
It is difficult to give a list of the colors which are most serviceable for water color painting, but from a comparison of those employed by others, it would appear that the following twenty-four may be safely recommended as being most useful:
Black Blue, Brown Madder, Brown Pink, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, Cadmium, Cobalt, Emerald Green, French Blue, Gamboge, Indian Red, Indian Yellow, Indigo, Crimson Lake, Lemon Yellow, Light Red, Payne's Gray, Prussian Blue, Raw Sienna, Rose Madder, Sepia, Vandyke Brown, Vermilion, Yellow Ochre.
These colors should be arranged in the box systematically. It will be found very convenient to place the yellow pigments at one end, the reds and browns in the center, and the blues at the other end.
In laying on the colors it must be borne in mind that if two tints be mixed the effect will be different from that produced by first laying on one and then the other above it, and if a transparent color be placed over an opaque one, the result will be different from that produced if both be blended. Thus cobalt and light red give a cool gray, but cobalt washed over light red produces a gray of an entirely different character.
It is not customary to put in the shadows with neutral tints before employing the local colors, as it has been found that the method which best represents the effects of shade is to deaden the local color by the admixture of gray or blue tones.
Colors which are complementary produce harmonious effects when opposed to each other.
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