29 APRIL 1899, Page 7

Brush - work Studies. By Elizabeth Corbet Yeats. (Philip and Son. 6s.)—The

system of teaching children to paint here pursued is in many ways an admirable one. Instead of first drawing an outline and then painting up to it, the pupils are told to make up their minds as to the shape of the leaf or flower to be painted, and then to make that shape with one stroke of the brush. For instance, in doing a virginia creeper each of the five leaves which form a group is to be done with one stroke. In the first place, the system cultivates the mind to take in objects as a whole ; secondly, it makes the student use water-colour paint as it should be used,—freely and decisively, and with a wet brush. Of course the danger of want of precision of form has to be guarded against. In this book there are a number of flowers, done in the style described, very well reproduced in colour.