bottom pieces are respectively fifteen and seven inches wide, with a perpendicular brace, eighteen inches in height, connecting top and bottom. The side pieces connecting the top and bottom should have holes in them at regular intervals for about half their length; a couple of pegs fitted into these holes serve to support a loose bar of wood, on which the picture rests; by means of the holes the picture can be placed higher or lower on the easel as is desired, A leg twenty inches long and pointed at the end, is hinged to the back of the easel at the top; and one twenty-two inches long, pierced with holes, is hinged to the bottom of the easel. By means of these holes, the inclination of the easel is governed. Academy board, or canvas stretched on a frame, can be used to paint on, instead of the sketch block referred to above.
Sketch your design correctly, but lightly; if you cannot draw, trace and transfer it as directed elsewhere, but if you paint much you will soon be able to throw aside these aids. Now study your subject and "set your palette" with the needed colors. It is well always to put the colors on in the same general order, as you will then work more systematically. To "set the palette," squeeze out of the tubes portions of color about the size of a pea, and lay them along the upper edge of the palette, be, ginning from the thumb side in the following order:—White, Naples yellow, raw sienna, burnt sienna, light red, Indian red, vermilion, terre verte, zinnober green, umber, blue, and black. You have thus ample space for mixing, with the palette knife (which must be added to the list given above), the various tints on the lower part of the palette. The lighter tints are usually placed on the right hand side of the palette. White or black is usually combined with all colors as they are required lighter or darker.
To make any tint, take on the point of the knife a small portion of megilp, and the colors you want, mix
