I think there is a myth that every professional artist only paints a masterpiece every single time they pick up their brushes. Many do, but there are also many artists who enjoy experimenting with technique, or who are not completely satisfied with their results so they bin a painting to start a new one. But no painting time is ever wasted. By painting repeatedly, we are instilling good painting ways into our creative sessions. The mistakes we make improve our work. Without paintings that are going wrong we are simply standing still in time, and possibly not getting anywhere in our personal art journey. That is, of course, unless we have reached the level we originally aimed to be as artists. At which point it is wonderful to enjoy it. But not everyone is that lucky or happy with reaching their destination.

I enjoy the journey of learning continually and growing each time I pick up my brush, but I do make mistakes which I still learn from. The funniest mistake I made recently was not with painting. Swans visit our cottage garden daily and almost live here. I can’t help it, I name all the wildlife that inhabits our garden. We have Hector the heron, Russell crow and many other daily visitors. But a new young swan arrived this spring and I gave him the name Sebastian. He accompanied Sydney, our regular swan visitor, but Sydney didn’t seem very happy at first with the extra guest here and he often showed his disapproval. Or so I thought. Then the display of aggression by Sydney turned into an act of courtship and I quickly realized that Sebastian needed a new name. Hence the title ” Sabrina” for the swan watercolor study above.

As I spring-cleaned my art studio, I watched as these two swans glided across the water outside. They looked so regal and Sabrina seemed to be smiling. In fact I am sure she winked at me. But that could just be my artist’s imagination. Either way, she made a delightful distraction from hanging paintings in my studio and generally cleaning up. Tomorrow I can walk into my space and enjoy painting. And Sabrina, painted in between clearing up, will greet me and smile at me. What a lovely way to start my day!