VELVET PAINTING
Velvet painting was a few years ago a very fashionable study for young ladies; because it was thought, as is now thought of theorem painting, that it could be acquired without any knowledge of drawing, or that study and correct taste which watercolors and oil painting require. For this reason, every Miss, however deficient, imagined that she might become an artist, if she could pay the sum of three dollars to some teacher who pretended to teach velvet painting, for that price, in six lessons. Unfortunately, there were always professors of the art who were willing to aid this mistaken idea. Frightful specimens were daily multiplied, and the few who admired and had a perfect knowledge of the art, soon were disgusted with it, and let it drop into oblivion; so that we now scarcely hear it mentioned, or see any traces of it, except when we travel through the country where painting has not made great progress. We may then see the walls covered with awful hieroglyphics; and if we inquire of their import, we are told that they are Moses lying in the bulrushes, Joseph going into Egypt, the Children of the Wood, or a Family Obituary Ground, &c. &c.; and that the young lady who executed them had a great taste for painting, and did the whole in six lessons!
Now the art of painting on velvet, though it has thus ingloriously fallen into disrepute, will, I hope, find hereafter, some votaries, who will come forward to practise on its simple but unavoidable rules, which are no more nor less than those laid down for all other kinds of painting, viz: a knowledge of drawing, a discriminate taste, and time and patience to do it well. With this improvement in view, I shall feel encouraged to give you a few directions for this kind of painting.
