The Painter in oil

There is never a recurrence of the same thing either in exact form or color, but fix your
eyes on one place, and over and over again you will see a succession of waves of similar
kind. Or look at a wave and follow it as it drives on; changes come and go, but the wave
form in the main keeps itself for some time.
Look over a large field of the water without too sharply focussing the eyes, you will see
the great lines and planes of modelled surface over and over again taking the same or
similar shapes, positions, and relations. And as you look your eye will follow the
movement in spite of yourself. Your gaze will gradually come nearer and nearer; but
meanwhile, in following the wave, it will have felt that the wave was the same in shape,
but only varied in position.
In this way you will come to know the wave forms. Jot them down, either in color or
with charcoal; but do not look for outline too much. Try to study the forms and relations,
mainly by the broad touch, with a characteristic direction and movement. No amount of
explanation will tell you anything. You must sit and look, think, analyze, and suggest,
then generalize as well as you can.
Open Sea and Coast. - The open sea is all movement. Even a ship, the most rigid
thing on it, moves with it. But you do not have to study these things from the standpoint
of invariable movement. You can start from a stable base. Study coast things first. You
have then the relation of the movement of the water to the rock or land, and you can
simplify the thing somewhat. What has been said of motion holds good still; but you can
get something definite in a rock mass, and study the changes near it, and then extend
your study as you feel strong enough.
The study of coast scenery is quite as full of changing beauty as the open sea, and it
has certain types that belong to it alone. Breakers and surf, and the contrast of land and
sea colors and forms, give great variety of subject and problem. In tile drawing of rocks
the study of character is quite as important, but not so evasive, as the study of wave
forms. You must try to give the feeling of weight to them.
The mass and immovability add to the charm and character of the water about them.
Subject. - Don’t undertake too much expanse on one canvas. Of course there are
times when expanse is itself the main theme; but aside from that, too much expanse will
make too little of other things which you should study. Whether your canvas be big or
little, to get expanse everything in the way of detail and form must be relatively small,
otherwise there is no room on the canvas for the expanse. So if you would paint some
surf, or a rock and breakers, or a ship, place the main thing in proper proportion to the
canvas, and let the expanse take care of itself, making the main thing large enough to
study it adequately. If it is too small on the canvas, you cannot do this.
Ships. - The painting of the sea necessarily involves more or less the painting of
vessels of different kinds. You may put the ship in so insignificant a relation to the
picture that a very vague representation of it will do, but you must have a thorough
knowledge of all the details of structure and type if you give any prominence to the ship
in your picture.
Detail. - You do not need to put in every rope in a vessel. You do not need to follow
out every line in the standing rigging even, in order to paint a ship properly. To do this
would miss the spirit of it, and make the thing rigid and lifeless. But ignorance will not
take the place of pedantry for all that. Every kind of vessel has its own peculiar structure,