Our limited space will not allow of our going more fully into the details of painting; but we hope that these directions will give some idea of how to make a beginning as a painter in oil-colors, and after you have made a start you will find two good professors at your elbow to help you along and encourage you—Prof. Judgment and Prof. Experience. [Illustration] CHAPTER XXIV. HOW TO MODEL IN CLAY AND WAX. AN eminent artist once remarked within the writer’s hearing that, should he bring into his studio the first dozen boys he happened to meet on the street, taking them as they came, he would probably be able to teach at least half of them to model within six months, whereas there might not be one of them who could be taught to paint at all. Possibly none of these boys would ever become great sculptors, but they could learn to model moderately well. If that is the case with boys, who are apt to be so awkward and clumsy, how quickly could a girl’s deft fingers learn to mould and form the plastic clay or wax into life-like forms. In some of the institutions for the blind, deaf and dumb, modelling is taught with great success. Quickly the sensitive fingers of the young inmates run over the object to be copied, and skilfully they reproduce in their clay the form conveyed to them by touch alone. It is pleasant to think that these silent little workers have this new pleasure added to their somewhat limited stock; but at the same time the fact puts to shame some of us who, having all our faculties, the use of all our senses, and not infrequently artistic ability in addition, do so little with the talents intrusted to our care. Let us to work then, girls, and see if we cannot accomplish at least as much as our unfortunate sisters, who have neither sight nor hearing to guide them. [Illustration: Modelling in Clay.] The great difficulty we encounter in learning to draw—which is representing things as they appear, not as they really are—will not trouble us in this other department of art, for in modelling it must be our aim to do precisely the reverse, and reproduce an object exactly _as it is_, not as it appears. Modelling, besides its own worth, is of value as an aid to drawing, for it teaches form, and the shadows on an object can be drawn more intelligently and correctly when it is known just what formations produce them. A great deal can be done in modelling without the aid of a teacher. So, not waiting to look up a professor, suppose we commence by ourselves and see what we can do. It is very fascinating work, and if a few failures are the result of our first attempt, we need not be discouraged, for what others can do, we also can accomplish.