The Artist's Assistant, In the Study and Practice of Mechanical Sciences: Calculated for the Improvement of Genius. Illustrated with Copper-Plates (Birmingham, [ca. 1785])

THE ARTIST'S ASSISTANT. 43

Of COLOURS.

The method of preparing the various kinds ufed in painting.

T T will now be proper to explain in an eafy man-
ner, the method of preparing the various bodies
employed by painters, for producing the difference of
light and {hade ; which may be termed either pig-
ments or fluids, as they are folid or aqueous; and
are difting-uifhed in their feveral kinds according; to
the manner of working them ; as oil-colours, water-
colours, enamel-colours, &c. but their variety are
too numerous to be in general ufe : moft painters
therefore felect a fet out of them, and become very
unjuftly prejudiced againft thofe they reject.. It is
no little impediment to their improvement in the
profeflion, that they are not more extenfively ac-
quainted with all the ingredients fit for their pur-
pofes.

Thofe colours which become tranfparent in oil,
fuch as lake, Pruffian blue, and brown pink, are
frequently ufed without the admixture of white,
or anv other opake pigment; by which means the
teint of the ground on which they are laid retains,
in lome degree, its force ; and the real colour, pro-
duced in painting, is the combined effeft of both.
This is called glazing; and the pigments endued
with the property of becoming tranfparent in oil,
are called glazing colours.

As colours are obtained from various fubftances,
the means of preparing them are confequentlv vari-

F 2 ous;