Page:The practice of water-colour painting (IA cu31924014501971).pdf/173

departure from his original intention, and any division of the interest of his picture. In this first view of his subject he begins by studying its forms and masses, and then goes on to consider its light and shade values, and to see how it lends itself to that focusing of forms and tones which is necessary for the proper pictorial rendering of a landscape; and it is not until his mind is made up on these points that he starts his record of the scene before him.

Usually he makes at the outset a rough suggestion in charcoal of the general effect of the composition – he chooses charcoal because it can be easily dusted off the paper – and then he draws in his main lines lightly in pencil. Then he lays a thin wash of warm colour, generally a mixture of yellow ochre and rose madder, all over his paper, and as soon as this wash has dried sufficiently he puts in the delicate colours of his sky and distance. Next, he deals with the stronger colour masses in the middle distance and foreground, and establishes the relation between these masses and the more tender tints in the remoter parts of his picture. To this broad statement are added what finishing