If you begin with the ...

If you begin with the middle-tone and work up from it toward the darks so that you deal last with your highest lights and darkest darks, you avoid false accents.
 John Singer Sargent

Quotes from the same author

Color is an inborn gift, but appreciation of value is merely training of the eye, which everyone ought to be able to acquire.
 John Singer Sargent
A portrait is a picture in which there is just a tiny little something not quite right about the mouth.
 John Singer Sargent
A portrait is a painting with something wrong with the mouth.
 John Singer Sargent