I am not disheartened even by my mistakes

Drawing becomes more and more a passion with me, and it is a passion just like that of a sailor for the sea. Mauve has now shown me a new way to make something, that is, how to paint watercolors. Well, I am quite absorbed in this now and sit daubing and washing it out again; in short, I am trying to find a way. “Puisqu'il faut faire des efforts de perdu. Puisque l'exécution d'une aquarelle a quelque chose de diabolique. Puisqu'il y a du bon en tout mouvement énergetique.” [Because one must make efforts like those of the lost souls. Because there is something diabolical about executing a watercolor. Because there is something good in every energetic motion.]

...I started at once a few smaller watercolors and also a large one, at least almost as large as one of those figure studies which I made at Etten. Now of course it doesn't all succeed right away. Mauve himself says that I shall spoil at least ten drawings before I know how to handle the brush well. But behind it is a better future, so I work with as much composure as I can, and am not disheartened even by my mistakes.

To Theo van Gogh, from The Hague, c. 12-16 January 1882, Letter 170
Translations courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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