CHAPTER XXVI
THE SKETCH
The sketch is the germ of the picture. It contains the idea which may later become the finished work. In your sketches you gather effects and suggestions of possibilities, of all kinds. You do not work long over a sketch, nor do you work perfunctorily. You do not make it because you ought to, but because you see something in nature which charms you; or because you have found an idea you wish to make a note of.
Understand thoroughly the use and meaning of sketches, and you will get more good from the making of them. For your sketching is an important matter to your painting. You do not learn how to paint by sketching; but you can learn a great many things, and some of them you can learn no other way. A sketch is not a picture; neither is it a study. Each of these things has its special purpose and function, and its proper character.
A sketch is always a note of an idea—an idea seen or conceived. Everything is sacrificed in the sketch to the noting of that idea. One idea only, in one sketch; more ideas, more sketches.
There are two kinds of sketches: those made from nature to seize an effect of some sort; and those made to work out or express tersely some composition or scheme of color which you have in your mind. Both are of great use to the student as well as essential to the work of the artist.
Sketch of a Hillside blocked in from Nature, First Suggestion of Composition, etc.