But for the technical fact, we have the artist's own testimony:

``Of late years, I find that I like best to work out-of-doors. First I make preliminary watercolor sketches in quarter scale (approximately ** f inches) in which I pay particular attention to the design principles of three simple values -- the lightest light, the middle tone, and the darkest dark -- by reducing the forms of my subject to these large patterns. If a human figure or wild life are to be part of the projected final picture, I try to place them in the initial sketch. For me, these will belong more completely to their surroundings if they are conceived in this early stage, though I freely admit that I do not hesitate to add or eliminate figures on the full sheet when it serves my final purpose.

``I am thoroughly convinced that most watercolors suffer because the artist expects nature will do his composing for him; as a result, such pictures are only a literal translation of what the artist finds in the scene before him. Just because a tree or other object appears in a certain spot is absolutely no reason to place it in the same position in the painting, unless the position serves the design of the whole composition. If the artist would study his work more thoroughly and move certain units in his design, often only slightly, finer pictures would result. Out of long experience I have found that incidental figures and other objects like trees, logs, and bushes can be traced from the original sketch and moved about in the major areas on the final sheet until they occupy the right position, which I call 'clicking'.