Page:The practice of water-colour painting (IA cu31924014501971).pdf/231
SKETCHING OUT OF DOORS
sketcher will be wise not to attempt on damp days, or in the evening time, subjects which require very exact definition, or in which there is much small detail that has to be crisply and firmly expressed; he will succeed better with broad generalisations and with soft atmospheric effects which can be treated with a certain amount of indefiniteness. It is as well, also, when working under these conditions, to use water rather sparingly – if the colours are moistened only just enough to enable them to be laid upon the paper, and if any tendency to sloppiness is avoided, the work is not so likely to get out of control, and there will be a reasonable chance of the touches drying.
The way in which a landscape subject should be treated must necessarily depend to a considerable extent upon the artist's preference and intention; the exercise of an individual taste in selection and in methods of expression is always better than subservience to an accepted convention. But the sketcher can be recommended to strive after two things, the capacity to see his subject as a whole, and rapidity in setting down the results of his
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