Why There Is No Right Way to Make Art

​I used to worry that my way of making art was not the traditional one.

That I didn't proceed according to the prescribed pattern of idea, sketches, outline, underpainting, tonal values and detail. ​

​​Mine was more like idea, leap in, do some stuff, discard some part, move something around, make something bigger or smaller, stick something down, scrape it off again, rinse and repeat.

Back in 2012 I began to come to terms with my own way of doing things - and all because of Yoga...

“...Because of my deepened Yoga practice now, I am learning to see my creative practice in a different light.
Doing Yoga is not about continually increasing my flexibility or mastering an elusively demanding pose (though sometimes these happen as a by-product) but about getting on the mat and figuring out what feels right to do today.
It’s about respecting the fact that although yesterday I could do a headstand with ease, today I may struggle to balance on two squarely planted feet; about being joyful that I practiced at all and leaving the room with a grateful bow of thanks for having the physical and mental space in which to practice.
I feel something similar about coming to the studio. I don't worry about the order of things. I don't sweat when the piece I thought was going to be a neutral saleable abstract turns into something orange, figurative, powerful and personal. 
In fact I no longer believe there has to be an order of things. I revel in the fact that beyond the basic mechanics of 'getting onto my mat', there is not.
I come into the studio; I put the lights on if it's dark, light the wood-burner if it's cold or open the windows if it's warm, put on my painting shirt and begin.
Sometimes beginning is writing my journal or taking a photo of the latest stage of my WIP; sometimes it is picking up a paintbrush and painting straight away; sometimes it is sticking a piece of collage onto a page of my open altered book and finding that suddenly it's lunchtime & I haven't moved in three hours. 
Beginning may be trying to mix a colour of paint that I don't have and am not sure can be manufactured out of what I do have, but usually can be. 
Or beginning may simply be sitting and staring at my recent work to get reacquainted with it.”
Journal excerpt - Dec 2012

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​Later that same afternoon I wrote:
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“Lovely long afternoon in the studio; very peaceful with just the crackle of the wood-burner and the hum of my thoughts.”

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​Who could ask for more than that? That the ever-present nagging of ‘shoulds’ goes quiet and leaves us in peace to just do what we do and be who we are?

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​I often forget to go back and dig for it, but there’s a lot of gold in my journals. (And this time I don’t mean sparkly paint!) 

So this might be the start a new occasional series featuring snippets of insight from my jottings over the last five or so years in which I’ve kept a digital journal...

Or it might not ;)
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