From the age of six I began to draw, and for eighty-four years I have
worked independently of the schools, my thoughts all the time being
turned towards drawing.
It being impossible to express everything in so small a space, I wished
only to teach the difference between vermilion and crimson lake, between
indigo and green, and also in a general way to teach how to handle round
shapes and square, straight lines and curved; and if one day I make a
sequel to this volume, I shall show children how to render the violence
of ocean, the rush of rapids, the tranquillity of still pools, and among
the living beings of the earth, their state of weakness or strength.
There are in nature birds that do not fly high, flowering trees that
never fruit; all these conditions of the life we live among are worth
studying thoroughly; and if I ever succeed in convincing artists of
this, I shall have been the first to show the way.
_Hokusai._