Struggling to Keep Up - In Awe of Prolific Artists

Far be it from me to agree that you're completely daft..... I do think you're worrying a bit too much, though. I certainly don't produce a painting a day - I have bursts of activity, a lot of which is experimentation rather than work I have any expectation or hope of selling; one of my recent posts here fell into that category but I showed it to illustrate a point (in this case, that you needn't fear powerful blues like pthalo and Prussian). I probably do produce a drawing a day - and sometimes a lot more. In general, this is also experimental - groping towards what will work as a painting. It troubles me when I'm not working ... I like to have a project on the go or I start to get restive. Increasingly, I'm also resenting spending time doing anything else (like attending NHS meetings); in part because I'm not sure how long I've got left and how long I'll be able to paint, so I don't want to waste time .... (I know, I'm just a stripling: but the imminence of my 65th birthday is causing a certain amount of re-calibration and reflection.) I really wouldn't worry about your lack of artistic get up and go: quantity doesn't matter - some people are amazingly prolific, some aren't: the only thing I'd say about that is that the more you do, in general the better you get. But you certainly shouldn't feel guilty about not producing as much as other artists - for all you know, they've had the work they're putting on POL stuffed away in a drawer for years and are bombarding the site with it, giving an impression of frenzied activity which might be entirely misleading. Think how valuable its scarcity will make your work when the grandchildren inherit it and take it up to Sotheby's ..... Seriously though - you worry too much! Just paint what you paint, when you want to paint it, and enjoy.

Still indoors - table laid, potatoes cooked ready for roasting (we are having a traditional roast meal for a change) table laid, veg prepared , I think the tree will have to wait until tomorrow. Now for the good bit - time to get a couple of G&Ts ready - my wife is due back from the dentists any time now.

Just a quick note - painting from photographs, which Thea mentions: see Alan Bickley's painting of Stoer Point Lighthouse on the gallery now; this was apparently painted from a photograph and "boring" is the very last word you could apply to it. Let's blow away these blasted rules we use to hobble ourselves, and just do what we damn' well want to do! It may be that women have less confidence than men by the way - I don't really have any way of knowing, only having been a man; loosely speaking .... But a surfeit of confidence has never plagued me, I can assure you: one of the reasons I use watercolour sometimes is that I'm actually not very good with it - I await your fervent denials, and await them keenly; but I know what I'm best at, and it ain't watercolour - I have no confidence in my watercolours, but that's why I do them; it helps to challenge any complacency that I'd otherwise develop about the things I am passably good at (notably acrylic .... I make no great claims for mine, other than that I can usually do what I want to do with them: the same isn't true of watercolour, which generally does what it wants to do with me).

I cook the odd and I mean odd mael now and then, a new found interest together with mynew style of painting, probably from the stroke I had last Nov. Maybe Thea is thinking of me in her post aboout prolific painters, but I always was quick worker and can produce 2 new works before lunch without crowing about it, it's just my way. Ideas, photos whatever come to mind and if the time is there, not always - I get on with it. Having just got back from a week away in Kent, lots of sketches done, posted in here, has left me with lodas to do in terms of catching up, emails, correspondence, art club, concerts, POL stuff and on it goes. I did intend to start a work today but was stymied by a suggestion to swim for exercise, so that's it fr the day, not in the mood now and the lawn needs a cut. It is smashing to see new people in here although noticing they con't seem to comment, but I haven't given theforum much chance yet. I hope they do contribute other than showing their work as I believe you should give as well as take in any club/group/organisation