[Illustration: FIG. 6. PILASTER: CHRYSANTHEMUMS.]
Having made your stencils, fixed upon and mixed your colours, and indicated the position of the repeats, the next step is the direct application of the colour. This is usually done with flat-headed hog-hair brushes, about 3/4 of an inch across, specially made for the purpose. With your palette knife spread out a thin film of the colour on the palette, which may be the back of a plate, or a glazed tile, charge the flat end of the brush with it, and bring it down perpendicularly upon the stencil. Don't overcharge the brush. If the pattern is irregular in its details, do every other one with one side of the stencil, and then having been round, wash off the colour from the stencil, and turn it round and do the intervening repeats. The lines are put on with a smaller brush, using the bevelled side of the straight-edge to guide the hand, using more pressure for a broad line, and charging the brush heavily with colour. Brushes specially made for lining, known as Fitch hair tools, cost, according to size, from 1-1/2d. to 5d. each. Stencilling brushes cost only a few pence.
The method of producing designs, stencils, and using the stencils is employed in the production of designs for paper-hangings, carpets, floor cloths, damasks and most flat manufactured materials, except that the white used is flake-white, and the colours are mixed with gum and water. The colours are known in the trade as tempera colours. The ground is laid evenly upon strained cartridge paper, and absolute flatness of tint in working out the design may be gained by using stencils. In making irregular designs, that is designs which are not symmetrical, the whole composition has to be drawn and traced.
In decorating a room, there is a very considerable range of choice in the styles available, some idea of which is given in the accompanying designs, from the purely ornamental ones of Figs. 1 and 2 to the natural treatment of Figs. 4 and 6. The design suitable for the top of a dado as Fig. 1 would, with a slight modification, equally suit the frieze of a room, as both are horizontal treatments; but for perpendicular applications, the designs should be redrawn. Some idea of the fresh treatment required is given in Fig. 1a, where the parts of the composition have been re-arranged to suit a vertical position. Should it be desired to adopt two colours, the principle to be acted upon is to make the smaller masses darker tones, and more intense colours, the larger the mass, the lighter and more neutral the tone should be. Fig. 4 is equally adapted for a frieze or dado top. It is designed in squares, so that by a re-arrangement of the squares, _i.e._, by placing the squirrel squares under the oak-leaf squares, it can be made suitable for a vertical treatment, or for the body of the dado. In designing such patterns as Fig. 6, where again two or more colours may well be used, care should be taken that the repeats fit well in with one another, so that no ugly spaces are left unfurnished, as decorators say, and also to prevent the recurrence of horizontal or diagonal lines. This is a failure with many commercial designs and is a fault very distressing to the eye.