Those years when you were gathering knowledge and experience…did you have any inkling where it was taking you? Or, Did you just surrender and go for the ride? Do you feel like you were the driver or were you led by synchronicity? -- Mary

Last week I asked for questions and boy did you deliver! I had over 400 responses. I couldn't respond to everyone personally, but I just want to say that I am extremely grateful to each and every one of you.

Sometimes we can get into a rut of writing the same things (just the same way as we can get into a rut in our painting). But now I have all sorts of ideas and topics - your questions have inspired me.

Mary's question (above) refers to my own journey as an artist. I have spoken before about what I call my 'lost years.' These are the years in which I was working on my art, but without any real success. I don't mean financial success (although I certainly didn't have that!). I mean that I wasn't successful in making art that really resonated for me.

Other people might have praised it or even purchased it from time to time, but I wasn't satisfied. I knew my art was just OK. I also knew it was incoherent - one minute I was making pen and ink drawings, a year later I was trying watercolour landscapes; then I started painting the local cows; then I went to life drawing classes.... and on and on.

Mary asks:

"Those years when you were gathering knowledge and experience…did you have any inkling where it was taking you? Or, Did you just surrender and go for the ride? Do you feel like you were the driver or were you led by synchronicity?

The answer is that I had absolutely NO idea. I don't think we ever can. We can only imagine things that have gone before - we can't see what hasn't yet materialised. And if it HAD been possible to see into the future, I would have skipped all the fannying around and gone right to the future!

But of course that's not how it works - because we can't get to the future without all the "fannying around" - it's actually the essential work of finding our way.

It's as if we are on a long hike without a map. We are never going to find our way without some misturns. Sometimes we are going to hike 10 miles in the wrong direction before we meet someone on the path who redirects us. Sometimes we are going to have to stop to rest. We will have to try this path and that path and eventually, by process of elimination, we will (hopefully) find a path that goes in the right direction.

For me all those life drawing classes were a way of finding out I didn't want to pursue figurative art - but they did give me the joy of making art once a week at a time when I wasn't doing that. Those pen and ink drawings were a way of finding out that representational art wasn't for me - but they did lead me to a love of inks. And those watercolours I hated led me to acrylics (which I love). The cows might have been a detour down the "wrong" path, but even they gave me something ... I made my first sales with the cow paintings and that gave me the confidence to keep going.

All this is a long way of saying that the journey is a long and winding road (tm Paul McCartney!) and all we can do is follow it and see where it leads.

There is one thing I wish I HAD known and that is what I now teach others in my courses and my monthly membership group. I wish I had known that it's much quicker, easier and more fun if you only ever do things you really enjoy. That it's OK to give up on things you don't like. That it's OK to focus on the things that feel fun and easy. I wish I had known that sooner because it would have shaved years off my journey AND made it more enjoyable.

So many of us push through when things don't feel good. Maybe we feel bored and frustrated if we try to draw realistically ... but instead of just choosing to do something else, we try to force it. Which then leads to procrastination and avoidance, because no-one likes doing things that are not enjoyable.

Beginner artists often feel they must keep going because they think the problem is somehow that THEY are not good enough. Actually, they just haven't found the right medium or the right subject matter yet.

So if you wonder how a particular artist discovered her unique style, remember that she probably also kissed a lot of frogs before she found the art that really suits her. You just have to keep following the joy and see where it leads you.