Here’s an advice I saw my dear friend Jon Dunham gave to a struggling artist. I thought I absolutely must share:

If you go out to find someone lost in the dark at night, you don’t go out immediately, but take a flashlight so that you may see, or else you may become lost and unable to find what you are looking for.

In the same way when you start a painting, you give some thought to planning pre-emptively, paying attention to pre-defining your light sources, forms, and perspective.

When you are searching for someone with a flashlight at night, you don’t give up after just an hour and go home even if you haven’t found them. You keep going, unsure whether you will or not.

Similarly, when painting, you should not expect to see significant results after a short period of time and effort, you need to finish what you start to get the most out of it.

When you are looking for someone, you don’t aimlessly cover the same square block over and over again, you spread out your search and go the distance.

If you don’t do finished pieces, you are never learning how to do finished pieces, you are only practising the same steps over and over, figuratively walking in circles.

When you find the person you are looking for, you would not be affectless, you would feel relieved for you know that they are safe and that you no longer need to worry.

When you finally finish the painting you are working on, you would not be affectless, you feel confident and proud in your work (no matter how briefly), for you know that you have made steps and have a definable, tangible depiction of your skill.