Whenever you have an opportunity to see anyone paint or draw, watch carefully

I think it a great privilege to visit such clever people as Weissenbruch occasionally, especially when they take the trouble, as Weissenbruch did this morning, for instance, to show me a drawing they are working on but which is not yet completed, and explain how they are going to finish it. That is just what I want. Whenever you have an opportunity to see anyone paint or draw, watch carefully, for I think many an art dealer would judge many pictures differently if he knew how they were made. It is true one can understand it somehow by instinct, but this much I know - I got a clearer insight into many things by having seen artists at work and by trying some things myself.

To Theo van Gogh, from The Hague, 13 February 1882, Letter 175
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
Back to The Way of Vincent: Making art no matter what