“I have stopped asking people for directions to places they've never been.” --Glennan Doyle

I get asked lots of questions. All teachers do.

And I do my best to answer. I explain how to know your paint colour is opaque or translucent. I share the differences between paper types. I show people the value of a limited palette. I explain how I get paint of my clothes.

I asked these same practical questions when I first started, and I'm happy to offer tips and shortcuts so that my students can save time and money.

But I've noticed that many of the questions I get asked are really ONE question - especially from beginner artists. That question is:

"Can you just make this easy for me please?"

Let me give you some examples... an artist might ask "How do I layer paint so that I get an interesting surface" or "How do I express my emotions in paint?" or "How do I make my landscape paintings more abstract?"

To me these are the fundamental questions an artist must explore and answer for him or herself. That is what we are here to do! If someone else answers your question and gives you a roadmap to follow, then what? What do you plan to do next, now that you have the answer?

And anyway, no-one can give you directions, as Glennan says in the quote above (from her book "Untamed") because they have never been where you're going. They have never made your work. Only you can do that.

So when you ask "how do I paint semi-abstract portraits?" or "how do I put my emotions into paint?" you are asking the wrong person.

Those are YOUR questions and your job is to answer them.

This is the foundation of my art practice. It's how I work all the time. I always have a question - sometimes more than one - and I am always experimenting to find the answer. Recently, that question has been "how do I express myself fully and authentically in paint, translating emotion and experience into colours and marks?"

Now I am not the first artist to ask this question, nor will I be the last. Just as one example, Jackson Pollock revolutionised contemporary art when he sought a way to do this very thing. He wanted there to be no gap between emotion/experience and canvas. He wanted to take his thinking mind out of the painting process entirely so that his paintings would be a form of 'pure' expression. His "action paintings" arose out of this desire. He would pace around his studio and drip paint onto large canvases laid out on the floor.

If you've every stood in front of one of these paintings, you'll know how much energy and emotion still hums from those canvases. It's truly amazing to me.

I suppose it would be easy to simply give up and say "well, Jackson already answered that question so there's no need for me to chime in."

But I don't think art works that way. I think each artist has a different answer to the same question. I might never attain the heady heights of MOMA with my own answers, but I still feel compelled to find them.

So how do I find my answers?

I start by researching other artists who have pursued the same line of enquiry. I want to understand the similarities and differences between us. I want to know what they considered and what they tried and how they felt about the answers they found. I may take something from their approach, or I may find it doesn't fit, but I need to understand.

I also experiment. I set myself little challenges - as if I was designing a course for myself. Maybe I try out some of those things I learned from other artists but mostly I set my own parameters. For example, I did a series of studies using the wrong hand to paint. I tried using garish colours. I tried working in monochrome. I experimented with different tools. I closed my eyes. I did some large gestural drawings. I made some tiny studies. I tried all kinds of limitations. I played with the atmosphere in my studio byc hanging the lighting or the music. I painted at different times of the day and in different moods. And I played with different processes.

As a result, I have found a process that excites me. It combines my love of working on paper with my love of wood panels. It blends collage, drawing and painting. It allows intuition to lead the way without removing all traces of discernment.

I've really enjoyed all the stages of this exploration and I'm excited about taking these ideas forward. By comparison. imagine how boring it would to just ask someone else for their method, and then copy that.

Someone out there needed to hear this today - if that's you, it's time to get started. Write down your question and then get started on answering it. You're the only one who can!