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Red, yellow, and blue, when mixed together, will also produce brown,
and even black, when in the following proportions, " fifteen parts blue,
" five of red, and three of yellow ;" or, without observing this nicety in
proportioning the parts, which is rather speculatively than practically just,
let your eye be your guide: it may be easily done. But what may be
surprising to those unacquainted with the nature of colours^ all the seven
mixed together will produce white; and though not a pure colour, yet one
that can be called nothing else; and if not useful as a colour, it is of im-
portance to know, that all the variety of tints, when mixed together, destroys
the strength of each other, and produces a weak unmeaning one. There
are other combinations also that produce white, as will be mentioned
hereafter. But from what little has been said, a person, unacquainted with
the theory, will have a more enlarged idea of the property of each colour,
and will be better able to tell what effect the mixing such and such colours-,,
on the pallet, will have. They will be aware, that the orange, though
formed to the hand by the colourman, is a mixture of the primitive colours,
red and yellow; that green is a mixture of yellow and blue, and so on. It
will be obvious also, from very little practice, that by dividing or separating
the particles of each colour, either by spreading them thinly with water upon
paper, or by mixing white with them, any tint may be produced, from the
fullest the colour itself will make, to the palest degree of it next to white;
and it must be observed, that in objects which are all of one colour, for
instance, all red or all blue, those parts of them that the light strikes full
upon, appear paler and lighter than the other parts, which, without being
in shade, are not so strongly enlightened. Now it is the business of a,
painter to imitate this effect of light upon an object, either by the artifice of
spreading the colour thinly upon those parts, and leaving it thicker upon
the others, or by using the colour, mixed with white, to make it lighter,
which produces the same effect. How every colour and tint, to be met with
in nature, is to be formed, either the experience gained by practice, or the
seeing another person do it, must inform a learner, so many colours being
produced by working one tint over another on the paper. Therefore
we must leave this part of the business, and proceed to the arrangement
of colours.