I haven't painted anything for weeks now, one of the reasons being a long-standing computer problem which necessitated my fighting manfully with my old machine, hereinafter named The Bucket, and having to accept that its useful life was coming to an end. I would tell you why, but although there's so much irrelevant bilge on the blog page, thanks to spammers, I don't want to add to it by going into computer issues. Suffice it to say that I fought The Bucket when it crashed, restored much of its functionality, but it was still Vista Home Basic as the operating system, and it still had too little disc space and memory. So - I got a new one, or more or less new, with Windows 7, which I finished setting up today: and it's like stepping into another century. I kept my drawing going even while The Bucket was driving me quietly mad (not always that quietly, to be quite honest), but just couldn't settle to painting. I prepared a board for an oil; I stretched a piece of watercolour paper - they're still awaiting my attention. I just couldn't concentrate on them, and actually (and stupidly) I made myself ill - I have a bit of a problem with high blood pressure which is normally kept in check with drugs, but I wound myself up so much that I pushed the BP right up, and realized this when I had a nosebleed. Time to stop fighting with the thing, and just get shot of it.... Which I've done. And all is (so far) well. (And the BP has subsided to much safer levels.) I'm wondering though whether this might not have been a blessing in disguise: whether it might lead to a re-evaluation of my painting technique. I think I have got a touch stale over the years; I look at some of my recent work, and think that well - it's not that exciting..... I'm really getting quite excited now, though, by the thought that a change might have stolen over me in these few weeks; I've been looking at others' work, here and on Facebook; have been much taken with the work of the French artist Christian Arnould; and have seen ways in which I could take my work forward. I haven't tried yet - I just have a head full of ideas: the proof will be in the pud .... But I think a rest from painting, even if an enforced one which mine has been, can quite often be a good thing .... I certainly hope so! Constant practice and effort is good - but now and then I think it may help to stop, and think, and just absorb other influences. We'll see! I might be deceiving myself and trying to make a virtue out of necessity. But it'll be fun, and interesting, finding out.