patience

I subscribe to various newsletters, one of which comes through The Painter's Keys.  

Here are some interesting thoughts on patience and the art of making art.  Reading this gave me one of those "aha" moments - you know how it is: you already begin to know something in a back-of-the-mind/heart kind of way, and then someone puts it into words, and then you realize that you know it a little, and then you want to know it better.

Thinking in particular of the rock painting disaster, the last one I did during our recent trip.  Perhaps the thing to do is to just sit and observe for at least 10-15 minutes before beginning to paint a landscape.  

Yes, already I do take a moment to look around and think about how the landscape looks and feels before I begin, but perhaps I could spend longer on that part.  Perhaps the sitting and observing could be more important than the painting, the primary goal in fact, so that I might just sit and observe without making a painting at all sometimes...

Hmmm.