I arrived a little late to an already buoyant sky full of colour. Looking high above my forehead at the expanding clouds I suddenly remember myself as a small child underneath the Macy's Day parade in New York. Enchanted, I stretched upwards, over and over again in vain hopes of touching those vaporous cartoons suspended just out of reach.
And here a hundred years later at the beach, I find the same pneumatic pleasure watching clouds mutating from one gentle and friendly shape into another.
I set up my easel quickly and began work. I made three studies which all began brilliantly or so I thought to myself, but I lost them quickly, one after the other, alas!
I overwork almost everything due to perfectionism. It's my achilles heel.
"Just one more touch here, there!" I think to myself. Then, I find myself lost, needlessly so, in search of a new ending. (Like authors, painters have endings too, B.T.W.)
I need to learn to stop just at the very peak, the very top crest of the painting, no more but no less. The wise cook cuts off the flame of boiling milk right before the boil. Ha Ha.
Anyway, this study was the first one I battled with and had thought completely ruined, but to my surprise, it doesn't look as as bad to me as other night when I packed up. More to be revealed, more to be learned.
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