I had a productive February - four oil paintings, a few watercolours, lots of drawings. March, on the other hand - utter shut-down. The blame can be laid partly on my ageing teeth: without running through the tortured history, I had a problem, it was treated; but it's come back, infection spread into my sinuses .... well it doesn't conduce to messing about with brush and paint. So I've joined a dentist's list, am full of antibiotics, and have the emergency dental service number to hand should it all flare up again before I get my appointment. I don't like dentists, but this has been interfering with all my favourite things - eating, sleeping, painting. I've neglected my website, blog, book, painting .... well, you might as well be dead ..... Does make you realize how much we depend on our health - and increases one's admiration for those artists who have carried on working through crises far worse than mine, and conditions far more debilitating. I was cheered up a bit, though, by Phil Kendall: he points out in his blog, bless his little cotton socks, that the light is so poor at the moment that painting is just really hard to do.... And others have said the same. So I take some comfort from this; it's not just me; and things will improve! Which leads me to reflect ..... I think one forgets this sometimes: the biggest problem with artist's and writer's block - and I've been both, so I've had both - is that rather than shrugging the shoulders and recognizing that it will pass, we obsess and fret over it so much that the period of block is extended into weeks, months, even years. So I'm taking the advice I've often given to others: if you're blocked, or depressed about your work, or think it's all going wrong and you can't do a damn' thing to improve, STOP. Take a rest from it. If you have commissions or deadlines, still stop: don't deceive people, tell them that you've got a problem and you need to take time - the worst thing you can do in those circumstances is not to tell people that you're having problems, putting things off before the deadline and then either working like a fathead to meet it, or worse still letting people down who were depending on you to meet it. Which is going to make you feel much worse - all you need on top of block is a hefty dose of guilt. Is that very professional? Probably not - but then an artist is a one-person outfit, usually. And individuals are prone to breaking down, falling to bits, tripping over the cat, getting colds, 'flu, rabies, bubonic plaque. People really don't expect us to be like the bus company, or Tesco, run on time and be open all hours (and they're idiots if they do). In such circumstances, cosset yourself for a while. Go away for a dirty week, never mind weekend; ignore the alarm clock; live on the credit card for a month, eat out, go for walks..... Sooner or later, the oomph returns. And Spring is just around the corner - sunshine, light, green shoots! We should again be able to walk in the countryside without sinking up to our knees in wet mud .... in the meantime, it doesn't really matter if you don't paint anything for a few weeks. You might wish it did, but it doesn't. And anyway - you don't want to flood the market with over-production, do you?