Page:The practice of water-colour painting (IA cu31924014501971).pdf/111

reproduction of the facts she supplies. It is the impression made upon him by the subject as a whole that he seeks to convey, and of the details available he chooses only those which will make this impression more intelligible.

His advice to students of water-colour painting can be briefly summed up as advocacy of simplicity and straightforwardness. He recommends beginners to avoid tricks, to work with a simple palette, and to keep it clean; to paint freshly and frankly, and to leave rubbing, sponging, and scraping alone until the possibility of doing without them has been fully realised; because, as he argues, devices of this kind are useful servants on occasion, but very bad masters if the habit of depending upon them has once been acquired. Concerning the fashion for putting in a painting at full strength at once he suggests that this method is a sound one for those who can really use it, but that in the hands of the inexperienced it is apt to lead to an inadequate result – to a result less expressive than that obtainable by more patient and deliberate ways of working. The