Page:The practice of water-colour painting (IA cu31924014501971).pdf/183

unnecessarily, or obscure, the artistic point that he wishes to make. It is an impression of his motive as a whole that he seeks to convey; he does not try to produce a merely realistic record of the scene before him. Sometimes, when he is composing a painting, he works from studies prepared beforehand, but this is rather an occasional departure than his usual custom.

In his figure work – in those tinted pen drawings upon which he lavishes such an astounding wealth of imagination – he proceeds by a more elaborate sequence of processes. The beginning is a careful drawing in pencil by which he fixes both the main essentials and the smaller details of his composition, and on this pencil drawing the pen-and-ink work is imposed and is carried to completion. Then the pencil marks, where they have not been covered by the pen lines, are cleaned off and the washes of colour are added. Frequently between the pen-and-ink and the colour stages, the general tone effect is worked out with monochrome washes, on top of which the colour is finally placed; but this is not his invariable practice