Figure with Paws 2014

I'm finding that I need to make a shift.  I wrote recently about my "rules" while teaching at Anderson Ranch, which included not being able to use my normal means of collecting information. I've also discovered that I want to use paint in a different way--that I want to spend as little time applying paint as I can.  No laborious building of a surface, no coming back and adding or correcting what I have, instead, a kind of wham bam thank you mam and if that doesn't work, then I put drywall mud over the paint and start again.  The excitement, for me, is in the instantaneous happening of something that is right, something that happens quickly and effortlessly.

In working this way I have to let go of most control, and I also have to accept that much of the success of this process is being in the right place at the right time.  From having painted for over forty years, it's extremely difficult to paint without knowing what the paint will do.  I know washes a little, but haven't worked with them much, since I've always liked to go back into the paint and work it until it becomes what I want.  With washes, once you put the paint down, you have to leave it alone because the more you mess with it, the less chance you have of it working it's magic--and it's this magic and trusting in the universe that seem to be what I'm looking for.