But you had better not bother with all these ways of painting. When you can work well in
the simplest way, you will find yourself making all sorts of experiments without any
suggestions from me. Work first for facts of utmost importance, and technical methods
are not such facts. Perception and representation by any most convenient means are the
first things to be thought of, and nothing else is of importance until a certain amount of
advance is made along this line.
Learn to see and paint the wholeness of the thing at once, not the details, but the fact
of it. Try to lay in things so that you have a solid ground to work onto and into later.
Look for the vital things. Don’t try for “finish.” Finish is not worked for nor painted into
a picture; finish occurs when you have represented all you have to express. When you
have got character and values and true representation of color, you will find that the
“finish” is there without your having bothered about it.
The masses you are to look for and emphasize are the great spaces where the light
strikes and the shadows fall. Close your eyes. The lines disappear. You only see large
planes of values; express these at once and simply.
Don’t be afraid of rudeness, either of handling or of color, at first. Don’t try for finesse.
All these delicacies will come later. But you must get the important things first. Learn to
be strong first, or you never will be. Delicacy comes after strength, not before.
So, too, freedom comes after knowledge - is the result of knowledge. So paint to learn.
If it is rigid at first and hard, never mind. Get the understanding and the representation
as well as you can, and try for other things later.