Ready, Set, Go!!

All the preparations are complete and equipment is laid out. Brushes are all clean. Kitchen roll at the ready to mop up drips and correct mistakes. Images are sketched and I know exactly what colours I want where, what order I will be applying them in and the texture and feel I want to portray, but I still find it so hard to make that first mark! Energy is gathering in my chest, my stomach is spinning! My feet feel as if they and stuck in mud and I can't move.

What is it that is stopping me!? Like having a field full of fresh snow in front of me, I want to run around and make marks but the field is so pretty under it's covering that it would seem a shame to mess it up. My canvases and boards are beautiful and white, clean and fresh, it would seem a shame to cover them up. The act of making that first mark takes a force of will and of trust. I know what I am doing! I have to trust myself to get it right.

Once that first mark is made however, then a forward motion is produced which is unstoppable! The paint flows, the brushes glide around the canvas. Somehow the image takes on a life of it's own as the act of creation unfolds to produce an energy and emotional out pouring. I feeling in my chest and stomach are now made manifest on the canvas.