106. This is the most elegant form of wood known and good specimens of the wood are a sight that well repay for the trouble of looking them up, as they will make a glad heart to the man who loves beautiful forms. To imitate it well by graining requires some practice and a good knowledge of what is required to produce the innumerable variations seen in it. When its growth is well understood it is not so difficult to imitate it. It may as well be stated here at the beginning that more bird’s eye maple graining is spoiled by overdoing than by not doing enough work upon it. The beginner had better confine his efforts to but a very few of the “bird’s eyes” at first. The few will look well and modestly nestled among their surrounding mottlings, but when this is overdone, which at the beginning especially is a synonym for badly done—whew! Better wash it off and try it over, with less of it next time, and the chances are that it will bear looking at it.

107. The graining of bird’s eye maple is always done in distemper, for the same reasons that were given in describing the graining of plain maple, and for a few additional ones of its own besides, so that all that will be said in connection with it must be understood as appertaining to distemper work.

108. The ground when the graining is done in imitation of the natural color of the wood must be of a very light tone of cream color, or the finished work will be too yellow. If it is to be finished in imitation of the gray stained variety the ground must be made to correspond to that shade and a faint pearl-gray ground must be put on as noted in paragraph 103. The ground should not be too glossy, nor too flat, either, for the distemper colors will not work at their best on either extremes, but one should strive for an egg-shell gloss as near as possible.

109. The graining proper proceeds very much as was described for the imitation of plain maple. The same colors being used in either the natural color imitation or the gray tone with a somewhat different manner of laying on the color with the sponge, in order to produce longer ridges of mottlings than is usually necessary in plain maple. These mottlings must be running in one direction mainly, but in a haphazard sort of way, and not uniformly as in ladder rungs. It requires some experience and an intimate knowledge of bird’s eye maple growth to do this preliminary laying out of the work. It is not difficult, but it must be done in the right manner in order to produce natural looking results.

110. The putting in of the bird’s eyes is done in various ways—some ways being better than others. One of the ways used by many is to use the points of the fingers upon the still wet distemper color and to peck it on usually upon the apex of the ridge of the mottles. It is far from being the best way, but it is the quickest. In the natural wood the eyes are very seldom found upon the darker mottles, but more frequently upon secondary ridges between them, or even upon the valleys laying between them. As there is not enough color left there to produce them by peeking them on with the fingers, the operators by that method have to confine their work to the aforesaid ridges, where they really do not belong.

Much better and more natural ones can be put on with a fine pointed artist’s sable brush, and when one has become habituated to their use they are very quickly made.

Again they may be put in with colored pencils of a tone deep enough to suit the rest of the work. This is more quickly done than with the sable brush, but the strokes cannot be varied as with that, and the more artistic graining requires their use. There are a number of other more or less mechanical processes used in producing the bird’s eyes, but none surpass the one’s described.

The veining is done with colored pencils as related in paragraph 104 and overgrained as described in paragraph 105.

In all cases where graining is done in distemper it is to be understood that the graining is to be varnished or receive a protecting coat of some kind or another, and as this is required in all cases of distemper graining it will not be repeated hereafter.

QUESTIONS ON LESSON XX.

106. What is said regarding the graining of bird’s eye maple?

107. In what medium is bird’s eye maple usually grained?

108. How are the grounds to be prepared?

109. How would you proceed to put on the mottling lay out?

110. How are the bird’s eyes put on?