Many years ago, when I was still a clinical social worker, I told a fellow therapist that I was closing my practice to devote my time and attention to painting, she joked “Yeah, your paintings won’t talk back to you”.

Well, she was wrong! My paintings do talk back on occasion! I was painting away on a large landscape and my painting kept interrupting me: “your foreground is too light, your clouds are too dark!! Won’t the rooster be eaten by a coyote without a fence?” My husband came into the studio to see if I was ready for lunch. I shared my mental turmoil with him, and he convinced me to stop, put my brushes down and walk away.

Sometimes when a painting starts talking to me like this, instead of pausing, I become more and more frantic to “fix It”. I was ready to take my DeWalt sander to this

I did stop, cleaned up and went for lunch. The first photo above was at the pause.

When I next returned to the studio, the painting didn’t look too bad! I no longer thought I needed to take the sander to the entire painting. If you get that anxious feeling that the painting is just not turning out as you had visualized it, just pause, put your brushes down, and take time out. On returning to it, you will see more clearly where you want the painting to go.

The second photo above was after more work following the pause.

And this is how the pause may feel!

Relaxed Frog