Learning To Let Go

All good artists have bad days. Days where nothing appears to go right and you spend hours on something which is clearly not working. Do you carry on and see if it will improve? Do you cut your losses and let it go? These are difficult decisions to make, especially if you have invested time into a piece and it's not going well.

I once spent all night painting two large canvases, only to paint over them both at 6 am. It was a hard decision to make, but I felt energised afterwards. Euphoric even. I managed to turn them both around in a matter of minutes and set them off on a new path which resulted in two good paintings.

I have a standard of what I am trying to achieve and I recognise when I feel proud of something. I also recognise when I feel any kind of negativity towards a piece, and it is in this moment I must make a change or let it go.

“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.” -Cynthia Occelli