and
only the general setting out of the masses will be of any use to you in
the work of this initial stage. Never paint with the poor spirit of the
student who fears to lose his drawing, or you will never do any fine
things in painting. Drawing (expressing form) is the thing you should be
doing all the time. And in art, "he that would save his work must often
lose it," if you will excuse the paraphrase of a profound saying which,
like most profound sayings, is applicable to many things in life besides
what it originally referred to. It is often necessary when a painting is
#nearly# right to destroy the whole thing in order to accomplish the
apparently little that still divides it from what you conceive it should
be. It is like a man rushing a hill that is just beyond the power of his
motor-car to climb, he must take a long run at it. And if the first
attempt lands him nearly up at the top but not #quite#, he has to go
back and take the long run all over again, to give him the impetus that
shall carry him right through.

Another method of judging tone drawing is our old method of half closing
the eyes. This, by lowering the tone and widening the focus, enables you
to correct the work more easily.

In tone drawing there is not only the shape of the masses to be
considered, but their values--that is, their position in an imagined
scale from dark to light. The relation of the different tones in this
way--the values, as it is called--is an extremely important matter in
painting. But it more properly belongs to the other department of the
subject, namely Colour, and this needs a volume to itself. But something
more will be said on this subject when treating of Rhythm.

We saw, in speaking of line drawing, how the character of a line was
found by observing its flatnesses and its relation to straight lines. In
the same way #the character of modelling is found by observing its
planes#. So that in building up a complicated piece of form, like a head
or figure, the planes (or flat tones) should be sought for everywhere.
As a carver in stone blocks out his work in square surfaces, the
modelling of a figure or any complex surface that is being studied
should be set out in planes of tone, painting in the first instance the
larger ones, and then, to these, adding the smaller; when it will be
seen that the roundnesses have, with a little fusing of edges here and
there, been arrived at. Good modelling is full of these planes subtly