In preparing any one of the palettes just listed, line your pure colors from the tube along the top (or around the curve) of a typical palette (of wood tone—not white) so as to leave ample mixing space. (See again color pages 42, 62 and 82. The palettes here reproduced, by the wav, were originally about twice the size—four times the area —of the reproductions.)

In mixing colors, pick up with your brush the desired amount of each and mix on the working area. Never mix another color into your pure stock. In mixing two or three colors to get a desired tone, don't stir and mix until you have one even color, but flip and push the brush, breaking the colors so that bits of each still remain visible within the tone you are creating. Never "soup" your color with medium; use only enough to make the paint easy to spread. The less medium, the more brilliance will be retained by the pigments.

It is also important not to destroy your mixed colors as you progress with the painting. That is, after you have mixed the desired flesh tone (in the center) don't destroy all of it when mixing the next tone but, rather, leave a good-sized patch. As a general rule, it is most convenient to mix the lighter and warmer tones from left to right. As you progress to the ruddier tones all the way to the reddest on the lips there may be a dozen degrees of color—leave a little of each. Reverse the process with the darker and cooler tones, working from right to left.

The importance of this procedure will be clear if you will recall how many times you have mixed a tone only to find that, when placed on the painting, it was way oil out of key, too strong or too weak. Also, you will find that a color mixed separately on the palette may be something altogether different when placed on the painting alongside another hue or between two hues. Every color affects in hue, and is affected by, every other color.

In short, a striking painting is achieved by the play of colors—the contrast of one with another. It is possible to paint a head in all warm colors, yet it will not appear warm without cool colors to contrast with it, just as strong light will not be possible without dark. Thus, by preserving your mixed colors on the palette, you can always mix the next one against the colors already on the canvas so that when you carry it to the painting it will look correct.

I use and recommend black paint, though some condemn it. If you will but make two simple tests I think that you will decide to use it too, though perhaps in moderation.

First, combine ultramarine deep and alizarin to form a near approximation of black. Having prepared clean flesh tones, such as you would use for a portrait, apply these to a scrap of canvas. Then drag your pseudo-black into these flesh tones just as, in an actual portrait, you would blend the hairline into the adjacent flesh area. The deadly purplish color which results will destroy the flesh tones immediately. If you use it for brows and darks in the eyes, etc., it will finally spread all over the face in its purplish form; the flesh tones will lose their sparkle and fall dead.

For your second test, blend ivory black and white to form gray, running nearly down to white. Into a small area of this gray, blend a touch of viridian; next yellow ochre with some gray; next cadmium red light, and so on. Note all the cool and warm grays these mixtures produce.

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