Page:The practice of water-colour painting (IA cu31924014501971).pdf/56

In fact, the one great lesson which Mr. Allan has been teaching through many years of busy production is that the first necessity for all convincing achievement is a distinct mental impression of the motive which is to be translated into a pictorial form, and that the clearness of this impression must be retained through all the processes of execution. The straightforwardness of his work is in a great measure due to the fact that he can see beforehand just what the result should be that he proposes to produce. He has grasped the thing as a whole, and every touch he puts on is designed to add no more and no less than he requires of it to the building up of the final, completed picture. He has visualised the finished thing before he begins, and he has decided how his touches are to be set down, so that each will fit with the other, like the pieces in a puzzle, and make its own contribution to the general design.

He begins with the slightest indication in pencil on the paper – with a suggestion of the main forms of the subject, so as to settle the