Page:The practice of water-colour painting (IA cu31924014501971).pdf/243

rough-surfaced pastel paper – preferably a grey one. If it is too dark a tint the paintings on it will be either too low in tone or will have to be loaded rather heavily to overcome the darkness of the ground; so it is better to choose one which will give just sufficient backing to the semi-transparent dark passages of the painting and yet will not make necessary any very heavy handling of the lights. If canvas is preferred, the best for general purposes is one of rather fine grain and prepared with an absorbent ground, white or tinted; to this the tempera pigments will adhere quite firmly.

But whatever may be the material selected by the artist to work upon, he should not forget that the medium is one which allows him full scope for decisive handling and direct brushwork. It is as well to warn him against the pedantic technical mannerism which has been adopted by some of the modern tempera painters – an affectation due to their unwise desire to imitate the methods of the early Italian painters, who applied their pigments with excessive preciseness and aimed at a laboured smoothness of surface. This archaic