What's getting in your way?

You know those days when everything goes wrong in the studio?

Those are the days when all you can to do is make ugly blobs, and muddy colours and you feel sure you've lost the ability to paint.

Well, I had a couple of those last week and I even filmed them. I was recording a series of videos for my Art Tribe community. They get to see inside my practice and follow my paintings as they develop. Usually this goes fairly well, but not last week. Last week, all I did was make embarrassing mess after embarrassing mess.

For a while I thought I'd have to scrap the videos (I'm supposed to be helping people become better artists, not show them how to be terrible!) but instead, I used the opportunity to step back and think about what was going wrong.

And it turns out that the problem was my process.

I talk a lot about intuition, but process and environment matter as well. We are only free to follow our intuition if we have a foundation in place that supports that. So, for example, if we want to make big bold paintings, we need massive canvases and bigger tools. If we want to paint delicate watercolour florals, we will need high quality pigments and a clean workspace. Depending on our goals and our personality, we might also need certain music playing or we might need complete privacy or we might need to be wearing our lucky painting sweater.  

If we decide we want paintings that contain depth and texture, we'll need to learn layering techniques.If we decide we want textures that look like rust, we'll need to develop a process to get that. If we want our paintings to express a certain mood, we might need to choose our colours ahead of time.

Do you see what I mean? There are often decisions to be made BEFORE we can be free enough to work intuitively.

Personally, I can't think when I paint. I have to keep the thinking separate from the painting. I have to decide on the process and the environment needed, and set all that up, and then I can put my mind away and start painting from my heart.

But when I forget that first part, my paintings can't find their way.

I think of it as planting seeds in fertile ground versus throwing them onto tarmac. If we take the time to mulch and fertilise our soil, we can grow a beautiful garden, but it does require that upfront time and care.

Does this resonate with you? Do you find yourself using the wrong colours or painting ugly shapes or messing up your drawings just because you haven't stopped to consider what you're doing?

If it sounds familiar, this is my invitation to slow down and reflect. Where might you build a stronger foundation?