Page:The practice of water-colour painting (IA cu31924014501971).pdf/227

a medium for the rapid expression of a fleeting impression, – for direct and significant summing up of the facts of a subject seen under particular conditions, – and it is not so well suited as oils for painting large pictures in the open air. The artist who realises that the medium has certain natural limitations, and who restrains his ambition to try and use it in ways that are not altogether appropriate, is the most likely to arrive at the best results. He will be less hampered by mechanical difficulties, and he will have a better chance of producing work that is right in manner and distinguished by really sound qualities.

The water-colour painter would be well advised never to sit in such a position that the direct sunlight can fall upon his work. A sheet of white paper in sunlight is a very dazzling thing to look at and in a very short time tires the eye so much that the exact judging of gradations of tone and colour becomes almost impossible. Moreover, the strong light makes the colours which are being put upon the paper seem much more brilliant than they really are, and consequently the sketch when