Primping and polishing

I have painters block.You know the Midas touch, when everything you touch turns to gold? Well, I have the Muddy touch right now! Everything I paint is muddy and wrong,wrong,wrong!!!
So,my usual solution is to stop,clean and think( I do my best thinking when I am in cleaning mode...go figure!) I am reorganising my paints, throwing away old tubes and grotty paint jars, washing and cleaning all my brushes and palette knives,re-arranging canvasses according to size and filing my resource file of photographs and images.I have even gone as far as cutting up old sheets to use as rags and stashing all the rags in a suitable receptacle,draining the turps jar and refilling it(although that made me want an early vodka...I resisted!). And all the time, thinking........block in the colours,use a big brush, stand back,squint,relax and enjoy,mistakes are how we learn,fat over lean(no..leaner than that,Jennie. Think Supermodel of oilpaint lean!).

When I am finished cleaning and thinking, I shall paint.I find it tragically funny that cleaning is my way of exorcising demons.Why could it not be shopping?!

Thanks to Robin Cheers for reminding me of the lessons above and, as always,  for her inspirational paintings.