Today just a sketch – from York.

My father was a champion clay pigeon shooter – he won competitions the world over. He had a theory that anyone could hit the first clay – the action was instinctive. He said that after that it would all fall apart because you would try to think about what you had done and repeat it and but the results were invariably a miss. From that point you had to learn how to shoot. I think that this also applies to painting, at least for me. On successful days its intstinct – I don’t think about what I am doing, I just apply the paint. The problem arises the next painting when I try to think what I did the last time and repeat the prescription and it just doesn’t work. Either the mood is different or the change in subject matter changes how I react. Today was one of the days when I tried to recreate whatever it was that worked yesterday and just couldn’t quite capture it.

Back to work tomorrow and dreading it. I’ve had the most wonderful 10 days at home, painting and doing artistic research. I’m going to try and do sketches in my lunch half-hour (weather permitting) and come home ready to paint.

New Year’s Resolution 4 – Sketch regularly.