Do you want to sketch all your life
Or learn to paint a master piece?

Do we not sketch to learn, to develop, to grow?

So why do you still sketch?
What more do you hope to learn?
That people are vulnerable?
That you can hurt them?
That you can leave them?  

Are you not tired of sketching outlines?
Don't you long for tonal quality?
For careful composition and a considered pallet?

I know your secret!
That the canvas scares you, terrifies you even.
All that you will be revealed on that unforgiving scape.
That expanse of white which must be filled and not by charcoal and line.
You will be revealed, exposed and displayed for all to see.
You will be revealed in the shading,
In the sensitivity you give to light and to contrast.
Yes, you will be revealed...
But in it you will be filled in.  
You will have no freedom to remain as an outline of a man,
With all hidden in fine graphite lines and hastily hatched shadow.
You will have to mature as a man, as an artist of the soul
And set yourself free on a canvas with confidence and brush!
What a liberation!

Will the first canvas be a masterpiece?
In all likelihood no!
But it will be a beginning
And how can you consider yourself an artist if you never paint!
How many sunflowers did Van Gough paint? How many chapels?
Was he satisfied with any of them?
And was each of them worthwhile?

Paint my friend, take up your brush and paint.
Use colour boldly,
Reserve fear and reservation for other pursuits
Or better still leave them from your pallet altogether.
Be sensitive and subtle with your treatment of the subject,
frame her well, carefully
But be bold.

There is little point in holding back.
Do you want your canvas to scream, "Hesitation!"?
Paint or don't, but if you choose not to, declare it to the world!
Do not act like a painter, talk like a painter and look like a painter,
If you do not paint!
Declare "I like to sketch"
And sketch until you bear no longer to leave a subject unexplored in a monochromatic if artistic hiatus.
Be true, be bold, be clear and when you feel the time is right paint with the same honesty and boldness with which you sketched.
Then it will be a true training,
Not the pontification a of a trainee conjurer working above his station.
Complete your apprenticeship, graduate,
And step forth into the world.
Confident, upright, paint brush in hand.