Paint in the sky first with a flat. sable brush, not overloaded with colour, and rub it well in, so as to have no thick patches of colour on the board - soften with a hog's-hairtool. The distance must also be painted with little body of paint. With a small brush lay in the face, the eye, and the dark parts first, with more colour in your brush than for the sky ; then work downwards at the dress, etc., finishing as correctly as yon can, laving on the lights with a flat sable, and with thicker colour on the shadows The net must be painted with thin colour over the sky. This finishes the fret painting, or "dead colouring," as it is called. When quite dry (which in summer time will be in a day or two, but in damp weather longer), wash it with cold water, and dry it with a soft cloth ; this is to prevent the colours from running and working as if they were greeny, when you begin to paint again. Rub over the parts you intend to paint, with a brush wet with a little linseed or oil or meglip, so as to leave the least possible quantity on the painting. This makes the colours combine with the first painting, and also enables you to wipe them entirely off, if you cannot succeed to your mind, while the previous work remains as it was.

Go over the painting with the same tints as in the dead colouring, correcting, improving, and softening, marking the high lights rather lighter, laying them on with spirited touches, and with rather stiff colour.

For the third, or last painting, when perfectly dry, wash and oil as before, and touch up, where it is needed, with the delicate flesh tints, adding a little madder lake on the cheeks.

The "glazing" is put on at, this stage of the picture - that is, laying some-transparent colour, mixed only with meglip, over any part, to enrich and give it depth ; thus, some burnt sienna, glazed over the red cap, will have a very good effect. It must be put on sparingly, so as to see the former paintings through it, and even taken off entirely with a rag or the finger, in some places, as on the highest light. In the same manner may the jacket be glazed with burnt sienna, the trowsers with blue, and a little madder lake in the shadows, to enrich them.

We will now give a few general hints on working up a painting : Lay your colours on steadily and boldly, with as few strokes of the brush as you tan help. Keep your tints pure and distinct, each in the place you mean it to be. Do not, by going over and over them with the brush more than you can avoid, muddle and mix the tints, for some tints destroy each other, and the transparency and beauty of the painting will be lost. In softening or uniting two tints, it is best either to use an intermediate shade, or else, with a clean brush and no colour, to melt them together. Much depends on the first painting. It should be lighter in colour than the picture is intended to be, as all colours sink, more or less, into the ground as they dry, and it can easily be glazed and toned down to the proper colour. The shadows should be put on thin in colour, the lights with a greater body of paint, with a sharp and firm touch. The brightest lights may be painted quite white, and glazed to the intended hue ; but, though beautiful effects are produced by glazing, it is dangerous for the student to be too free in the use of it. Be as careful as you can in the earlier paintings; for it is impossible to glaze a bad picture into a good one.

"Scumbling" is the reverse of glazing, and is done by going over the painting when quite dry, with opaque tints of a lighter hue, generally with a mixture of white. It is of use in cooling down colours that are too bright, and in making objects appear more distant; smoke, mists, and the haziness of the far-off hills, are thus produced. It should be laid on very thinly with a hog's-hair tool. Scumbling, however, must not go over shadows, as that would spoil their depth.

In painting a head, begin with the eyes and nose, then the forehead, mouth, cheeks, and hair; then go to the background, commencing at the top of the picture, and working down to the head. Backgrounds are very various, but there is generally a little lightish tint near the face, which melts off into deep shadow to the upper part of the picture. In black hair, or draperies, mix a little Indian red, to give a warmth and harmony. A brilliant effect is produced by some painters, who lay the first colouring of a head in gray tints only, composed of black, white, and Indian red, of different shades, using pure white for the high lights; and, when dry, glaze it all over with madder lake and raw sienna; then put on the carnation tints, and point up the shadows with burnt sienna and black. This would answer best for a large head, and is only one of the vagaries in which artists indulge. Let a beginner get the picture as like the copy as possible in the first painting, though rather lighter in tone.

During the progress of the work, frequently retire and look at it from a distance, to judge of the effect; to examine it also in a looking-glass is a good plan to detect any faults in the drawing. If you are copying from anything in nature, either landscape or figure, look at it occasionally with the eyes half-closed, or through a tube or roll of paper; the lights and shadows will by this means appear more distinct and denned, and the object more raised, and be more easily copied.

In our next chapter, we hope to give our readers a few hints on landscape painting, together with the choice of subjects, aud the arrangement of a picture, etc.