64. Prepare your color as directed for Exercise VII. Take a brush full
of it, and strike it on the paper in any irregular shape; as the brush
gets dry, sweep the surface of the paper with it as if you were dusting
the paper very lightly; every such sweep of the brush will leave a
number of more or less minute interstices in the color. The lighter and
faster every dash the better. Then leave the whole to dry; and, as soon
as it is dry, with little color in your brush, so that you can bring it
to a fine point, fill up all the little interstices one by one, so as to
make the whole as even as you can, and fill in the larger gaps with more
color, always trying to let the edges of the first and of the newly
applied color exactly meet, and not lap over each other. When your new
color dries, you will find it in places a little paler than the first.
Retouch it therefore, trying to get the whole to look quite one piece. A
very small bit of color thus filled up with your very best care, and
brought to look as if it had been quite even from the first, will give
you better practice and more skill than a great deal filled in
carelessly; so do it with your best patience, not leaving the most
minute spot of white; and do not fill in the large pieces first and then
go to the small, but quietly and steadily cover in the whole up to a
marked limit; then advance a little farther, and so on; thus always
seeing distinctly what is done and what undone.