the plant. The petals shatter rather easily, and some little care must be exercised in gathering a piece for drawing purposes. Another point to be observed by the young student is that, as in the case of the Japan quince and many other flowers, the buds are deeper in colour than the fully expanded flowers. The white portion of each petal is of snowy purity, and the necessary shading must be applied with great delicacy, while the pink portions must be laid in very deftly with rose madder, carefully avoiding any harsh and sharp edges. These markings are exceedingly irregular both in form and amount, some petals being almost destitute of them, while in others the red portions are largely in excess of the white. It must be borne in mind, too, that the tint is an essentially delicate one, and that it is very possible to overlook this only too many drawings testify. The yellow anthers in the centre of the flowers may be painted in with Indian yellow. The foliage has a good deal of grey in it, and forms an excellent foil to the pure tints of the flower clusters. Indigo may be freely employed, though in the brighter parts the rich green required will be compounded of gamboge and Prussian blue. A little sepia may advantageously be added in some of the veinings and darker portions. The stem, too, shows a considerable variation of colour, and, while grey in general effect has a considerable blending of yellowish and darker-green intermixed, this richer colour may be first applied, and then the quieter and darker tints worked around and upon it. Though not so showy as some of our other examples, it will be found admirable practice both in drawing and colouring.

SWEET-PEA.-We have never quite understood why so beautiful a plant as the sweet-pea should be so seldom painted. We do not, indeed, recall to our minds a single example of its introduction in any drawing. It figures, of course, in the grand illustrated catalogues of noted florists and seedsmen, and the original finds its way into many a garden, but its grace and beauty have never seemed to win it artistic admirers. A long row of these peas, with its hundreds of expanded flowers, is a really beautiful sight, and the variation of colour is much more considerable than the limited space at our disposal will allow us to indicate in our drawing. There is a wild picturesqueness of form about all these papilionaceous or butterfly-like flowers that is very attractive, though the name is a great misnomer, for there is but slight suggestion of anything resembling a butterfly in any of them. The reference probably is to the form of the big upper petal, at times fully expanded, as in our central flower; or at others, like the one on the left, having its sides compressed together like the wings of a butterfly at rest. The drawing of all these pea-flowers is not by any means easy, whether the subject be the sweetly-smelling pea now before us, the golden blossoms of the prickly furze, or the broom, or any other representatives of the big family to which they all belong. When we are able to get the flower immediately opposite to us, so that we either look right into it or get it "broadside on," the task is comparatively easy; but as the flowers in nature present themselves at all sorts of intermediate angles, we have no choice but to attempt these foreshortened views as well, and these present considerably more difficulty. When one can draw a sweet-pea in whatever position it may be

placed the days of novitiate are over, so far as plant-drawing is concerned. The colours employed in our group are crimson lake, cobalt for the bluish-purple, crimson lake alone for the reds, a mixture of madder brown and black for the deeper shades, and lampblack alone, much diluted, for the paler grey. The pale grey of the leaves may be painted all over them, and then the richer greens and the shades painted upon it. A fine brush and a light hand, guided by some little patience, will be necessary both for the leaves and tendrils, but they present no real difficulty to any one armed with these three requisites.

FIELD SCABIOUS.-We have already, in the previous series, dwelt upon the general importance of keeping everything connected with our painting materials scrupulously and faultlessly clean, but it is advice that may well be reiterated, and especially when we have so delicate a subject before us as the field scabious. An old schoolmaster we once knew, a veteran in the ceaseless strife with idle and indifferent schoolboys, laid down as his maxim for success, "simplify and repeat." It will be our aim to make our directions as simple as possible, though we shall naturally feel that this being our second series our pupils will have surmounted many of the initial difficulties, while we may at the same time even be allowed to repeat what we have already said when its importance calls for such a reiteration. Once again, then, we would observe that success is only possible when all the materials employed are kept in a state of rigid cleanliness. The water should be frequently changed, the brushes should also be carefully washed before being put down even for five minutes, the slabs on which the tints are mixed should always be of white ware, and entirely free from stain or grease, while the pigments should be preserved from dust. In mixing, too, the brush should never travel directly from one colour to another, but should be cleansed in the interim : in making a green, for instance, it seems so much less trouble to dip the brush first into the Prussian blue and then at once into the gamboge, but in so doing we are sure to leave a little of one colour on the other, and the next time we want gamboge, pure and simple, the presence of the other colour with it is painfully obvious. Our present flowers should be painted with a very light wash of cobalt and rose madder, a little indigo being added in the shades. The heads of the stamens may be painted with a mixture of cadmium and burnt sienna. The whole flower-head must be very delicately and lightly drawn: any harshness of outline would be entirely destructive. The leaves call for no especial comment, as the pupil by this time will have had a sufficient amount of practice to feel no difficulty with them.

WALLFLOWER.-The present study has a certain boldness and simplicity of effect that will, doubtless, commend it to the student. The forms are simple, definite, and decided, the colours rich and effective. No fine blending or gradation of tints is anywhere necessary, and even the novice in the art of flower painting in water colour will feel little difficulty in reproducing it. All the associations, too, of the plant are attractive, whether we recall its delicious fragrance, the way in which, in a wild state,

it clothes the grey and crumbling ruin with beauty, or in its cultivated condition bedecks in grand profusion the garden of the rustic cottager. Even the jaded townsman, fighting for his bread in the fierce competition of the murky city, has early memories stirred and pleasant visions of a far-away home recalled, as he passes the glowing piles of its blossoms in the market or in the baskets of the way-side flower women, while the investment of a few pence will suffice to fill his house with its fragrance, and his heart with something better than the daily toil and worry; its velvet petals, mayhap, being to him as good a text as the glowing and kingly splendour of those far-away lilies of the field he has often heard of, but never, perhaps, realised in any sense. The variety of colour in the flowers is an added charm, for while some are a rich golden yellow, others are a deep crimson or purple red, while others again, as in our illustration, are mottled and streaked in various combinations of colour. We have more than once seen effective little pictures, both in oil and water colour, that owed all their interest and their subject to a big variegated bunch of wallflowers placed in some picturesque old vase or jug. The ground colour of the present flowers is a strong tint of cadmium; this may be applied over the whole of the petals, as the deeper streaks and veinings can be painted over it. These deeper markings are a compound of cadmium and crimson lake, while the shaded portions will require sepia and madder brown. The yellow ground must not be taken over the calyx or the unopened buds, or it will render it impossible to get the necessary purple tone seen in those parts. This purple will be got by adding a very slight portion of French ultramarine or Prussian blue with crimson lake, and then the whole may be shaded with Prussian blue and madder brown combined. The fresh clear succulent look of the stems must be preserved, and the cold grey of the foliage.

CORN BLUEBOTTLE.—The brilliant blue of the corn bluebottle, or corn-flower, as it is often called, from its pre-eminent beauty amidst the blossoms of the harvestfield, is a very rare tint amongst our flowers, most of our plants having either yellow, white, or pink blossoms. Any one will at once see this if they recall to mind any of the common plants, as the yellow dandelions, daffodils, iris, buttercups, hawkweeds, agrimony, cinquefoil, silverweed, and dozens more, or the white blossoms of the waterlily, snowdrop, anemone, yarrow, clover, and bindweed, and the pink flowers of the marsh mallow, centaury, campion, herb robert, and wrest harrow. Of scarlet flowers we have really but one, the brilliant poppy that brightens the railway banks and cornfields in rich profusion, though the pimpernel is sometimes considered as number two; its tint, however, is far more delicate than that of the poppy, and it can scarcely legitimately be classed with it. Our purple flowers have sometimes so much blue in their tint that they approach the strength of the cerulean blossoms of the corn-flower : as, for example, the hyacinth and the bugle, but neither of these are so distinctly blue as the graceful subject of our illustration. The corn bluebottle is not by any means an easy flower to draw. When we get one of the outer florets directly opposite to us, and see into its depths, the picturesque segments into which its margin is cut are not

difficult to represent, but in drawing the entire ring it is evident that all we can hope for is to get one at most in this favourable position, and, perhaps, not even that. The more we see of the ring, and the ever-varying angles of its component parts, the more carefully we are compelled to study the forms presented to us; hence, a flower in the position of the upper specimen in our illustration is easier to draw than the lower one. The flowers vary in colour in nature, some having the deep blue of our figure, while others are somewhat more purpled in tint, and others, again, have a paler and more bleached appearance. The general groundwork in our example is pale cobalt or French blue, some of the deeper shades being made by using the latter in greater strength, while in others a little crimson lake or madder brown may be added. The inner portion, it will be observed, is of a redder purple than the outer. The scales on the globular portion below the ring of florets must be carefully indicated, and the stems and foliage kept of a dull and bluish-green, a compound of Prussian blue and yellow ochre, with a slight dash of black in it.

CRASSULA.-Crassulas vary considerably in colour, some of them being so magnificent in tint, that the flower painter might well lay down his pigments and brushes in despair at the unattainable. The variety we have taken for our illustration is fairly within one's reach, but we have a vivid recollection of an intensely scarlet variety that we have never had the courage to attempt. We have in the same way an intense admiration and respect for an equally flaming scarlet cactus, beside which all the colours in our box, singly or in any possible combination, would appear mere brick-dust, and which we have never ventured to attack. The crassula flower has a waxy look, and both the blossoms and leaves have a pulpy and succulent appearance, that must be carefully given. The forms and curves of the petals, the thick margins and absence of veins in the leaves, all help to express this idea. The flowers may be painted in with rose madder, care being taken to preserve the white centre, while carmine, neutral tint, and madder brown are used in some parts to brighten or to dull, as may be required. Carmine, it may be mentioned in passing, is a peculiarly fugitive colour, and its evanescent charms, tempting as they are, should be but rarely resorted to in any drawing that will thereafter have to face the light, or it will turn in course of time, and a very short time too, into a dull and disagreeable red that conveys no memory of its pristine purity. Crimson lake, in the same way, is not to be depended upon, though the fall is nothing like so rapid nor so complete as in the case of carmine. We write feelingly, for we have a sketch of a Surrey common that once glowed in some degree of imitation of the glorious stretches of purple heather seen in Nature, but is now a mere ghost, the heather being a pale bluish tint. It was originally painted with a mixture of crimson lake, with the blue to make the necessary purple, but the partnership is dissolved, and the crimson has faded away. The subject is painful; revenons à nôtre crassule. The leaves of the crassula, it will be observed, grow in pairs; the colouring calls for no especial comment, but it will be noted that a little warm colour is blended. with the green. Burnt sienna and a slight admixture of sepia will give the required

tint; it should be put in upon the green, for if painted in first, and then the green put over it, it would very possibly work up and destroy the purity of the colour washed over it.

WHITE BEGONIA.-White flowers are always difficult to paint, as it is so very easy to sully the purity of effect so essential in their representation. If we put as little grey as possible into them they look at best but flat and diagrammatic, while the introduction of over much shade at once makes them dark, heavy, and dirty in effect. We can imagine our readers at this point saying something about "the happy medium," and hinting that all one has to do is to observe this golden mean between the under doing and the over doing, and that all will then go smoothly. Practically, however, the difficulty always makes itself felt. The difficulty is greatly increased when the white flower has to be painted on white paper, and in such a case we may often resort to some such expedient as that shown in our plate, where a large portion of one of the flowers, and some at least of the other, has a background of green leaf. This must not, however, be over done: had we, as we easily might, thrown the whole of the flowers in front of the leaf, the means resorted to would have been too apparent, and the effect forced. The present flower is by no means so difficult as many others would have been, as, though called the white begonia, it has a strong dash of yellow in it, and this at once gives the necessary relief from the white paper: a bunch of white lilies would present far greater difficulty. Where it is undesirable to paint a white flower on white paper (a degree of undesirability that may be perhaps best defined by saying nine times out of ten), the flower should be painted on the white surface, and then a suitable background painted to it, rather than painted in opaque white on a tinted ground. The delicacy and transparency of effect that are characteristic of most white flowers is almost impossible of attainment when Chinese white is as freely used as the toned paper renders essential. The sulphur-yellow of our flowers is produced by a pale wash of gamboge, while the centres are a deeper tint of the same colour strengthened in places by cadmium. The grey is produced by light washes of lampblack. The leaf, and its veinings, must be very carefully drawn, and its quaint want of regular balance noted; the cool, pale grey may be passed over the whole surface, and the other tints then painted upon, as it is too pale in strength to form any hindrance to our afterwards getting the richer green seen in some places, and it is always far better, wherever practicable, to lay one colour upon another, than to join them together like pieces in a dissected map or puzzle.

MILK-THISTLE.-The present plant, one of the most beautiful of the many kinds of British thistles, will afford the student abundant practice alike in the drawing and in the painting. Most people have but a poor idea of thistles at all, and have no notion of the great variation of form and colour that may be seen in them. They regard them as being no better than donkey-provender; but any one who has had the felicity of seeing a good specimen of the milk-thistle, towering some eight feet high, and having