A love of nature will quicken and stimulate the faculties; take the flowers and plants for instructors, and they will teach and guide you. Though there cannot be found an exact duplicate of any blossom or leaf, still these may be conventionalized by arranging them in all sorts of symmetrical designs. There is no mystery about the matter, for all the designs are conceived upon the most simple of geometric laws. We are now following in the steps of the old masters, and an unlimited field of new combinations opens before us. When making designs for this chapter, the writer did not select the objects she thought would be most decorative, but anything which chanced to fall in the way; and what she has done you can do, provided, of course, that you have ordinary skill with the pencil. =The Peony Leaf.= Suppose you do not know how to draw at all! Even then you can design. Take the first thing you see, which in this case happens to be a peony leaf (Fig. 68). That is, assuming that you are seated by the side of the writer. [Illustration: Fig. 68.] [Illustration: Fig. 69.] [Illustration: Fig. 70.] [Illustration: Fig. 71 Fig. 72 Fig. 73] Now watch! We will pull it apart thus (Fig. 69). Next with a pair of scissors, a knife, or fingers snip off the stems, and group the leaves in any way we chose. We will try this combination (Fig. 70). If you do not understand drawing, we must fasten the leaves down upon a piece of paper as they are arranged, and trace around them, following their edges with a pencil until the outline is complete (Fig. 70). By simply repeating this figure at regular intervals we have a very pretty border design and one that is truly original, for the writer had no more idea than you, what was to be the result of this experiment. In order to make the pattern exact, draw lines as in Fig. 71, for a guide; then draw the figure according to the foundation lines (Fig. 72). When finished, erase the lines and the design stands a conventionalized peony leaf, Fig. 73. By making a tracing of the first pattern, you can repeat it any number of times. It requires no great or peculiar genius to design well, and it is a mistaken, old-fashioned idea to suppose because you never have done any original work in art that you never can. Do not slavishly follow other people, but believe that there is implanted in you the same elements that belong to those whose designs you admire, then commence and design for yourself. That you may have a start in your new art, we will try something else, a vegetable this time, for here comes the green-grocery man with a basket full of as quaint decorations as are ever painted with bamboo-handled brush by the Japanese. =A Bunch of Turnips.= [Illustration: _Fig. 74_ Bunch of Turnips] [Illustration: Fig. 75.]