the GREAT Hawthorne said: ""Do studies, not pictures. Know when you are licked — start another. Be alive, stop when your interest is lost. Put off finish — make a lot of starts. It is so hard and so long before a student comes to a realization that these few large simple spots in right relations are the most important things in the study of painting. They are the fundamentals of all painting.Paint the color tones as they come against each other, and make them sing, vibrate. Don't ask me to look at those self-satisfied, pretty things.
Realize the value of putting down your first impression quickly. Swing a bigger brush — you don't know what you're missing. Paint what you see, not what you know.The ring, the call, the surprise, the shock that you have out-of-doors — be always looking for the unexpected in nature, do not settle to a formula.Painting is just like making an after-dinner speech. If you want to be remembered, say one thing and stop.To see things simply is the hardest thing in the world." [AND MORE in "Hawthorne on Painting"]
