What is there to say about painting that has not already been said, all I can offer is my personal experience. Sometimes it goes well, other times it is rough and then there those rare times when you have lost track of everything, so much so that there is no memory, then something jolts you back to reality and one, two maybe three hours has passed. No mater what state you are in, good, bad or in a trance the only thing that matters is the work and if is good. When everything is going well it is easier to fall into old habits and then fall into that ever so fun rough patch. It is there that the painting first begins to form, before that it was just an abstract idea. Now you are confronted with all of your decisions and you must decide to stop, to continue with your plan, alter it, to step back and wait or just scrape everything off and mix batch black? This choice defines each and every painting and changes form painting to painting. Knowing what to do is an art itself, and only becomes slightly easier after having made hundreds of paintings.
Paint can be manipulated to look like anything and at the same time why would you want to when paint is so luscious on its own. The first thing you see when looking at a painting is the paint itself, why would you want to detract from that? Now when I walk through museums I see great works and I am in awe and then I remember the paint that I am seeing is a record of the artist decisions. How far to push this or that, scrape off what was bad and begin again, touch this up, get that reflection just so, capture the essence of the moment with the perfect blue, not so dark that it is black but just sits off on the line and remains blue.
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