Letter 05/15/1885 - by Vincent van Gogh

Here is a sketch of a head, which I have just done. You have received the same one in the last set of studies I sent; it was the largest of them. But painted smoothly. I have not spread out the brushstrokes this time, and the color is in fact quite different.

I have not made a head before that is quite as much "peint avec de la terre" ["painted with the earth"], and more will certainly follow. If all goes well - if I can earn a little more, so that I can travel more - then I hope to go and paint mineworker's heads as well some time.

However, I carry on working until I am completely sure of what I am doing, so that I can work still faster than now, and in a month's time, for instance, I will also produce some thirty studies.