ess of expression may even go to the elimination of what
is ordinarily looked upon as "finish." Finish is not surface, but
expression; and completeness of expression may demand roughness and
avoidance of detail and surface at one time quite as positively as it
demands more detail and consequent smoothness at another.

And this final completeness comes from the last paintings which I
group together as the "third." Scumble and glaze and paint into them,
and glaze and scumble again. Use any process which will help your
picture to have those qualities which are always essential to any
picture being a good one. The qualities of line and mass, composition
that is, you get from the first, or you never can get it at all. Those
qualities of character, and truth of representation, and exactness of
meaning, you get in the first paintings, together with the more
general qualities of color and tone. Emphasis and force of accent,
such detail as you want, and the final and more delicate perceptions
of color and tone, you get in the third or last painting, which may be
divided into several paintings.

=Between Paintings.=--When a painting is dry and you begin to work on
it again, you will probably find parts of its surface covered with a
kind of bluish haze, which quite changes its color or obscures the
work altogether. It is "dried in." In drying, some of the oil of the
last painting is absorbed by what is beneath it, and the dead haze is
the result. You cannot paint on it without in some way bringing it
back to its original color. You cannot varnish it out at this stage,
for this will not have a good effect on your picture.

="Oiling Out."=--You can oil it all over, and then rub all the oil off
that you can. This will bring it out. But the oil will tend to darken
the picture; too much oil should be avoided. Turpentine with a little
oil in it will bring it out also, but it will not stay out so long,
but perhaps long enough for you to work on it. If you put a little
siccative de Harlem in it, or use any picture varnish thinned with
turpentine, it will serve well enough. There is a retouching varnish,
_vernis a retoucher_, which is made for this purpose, and is perfectly
safe and good.

The picture must be well dried before it is finally varnished.

CHAPTER XXXV

DIFFICULTIES OF BEGINNERS

All painters have difficulty with their pictures, but the trouble with
the beginne