Strange how I regard painting as a struggle. Most outsiders see it as an uncomplicated pleasurable past time that is good for your mental health! An artist like Frank Auerbach has said that one of his main motivations to continue is his intense dissatisfaction with what he is producing. Simple, stop doing it, problem is some people cannot, myself included. My recent absence is due to a different kind of struggle, one that is purely physical (see my page, ‘The Landscaped Garden’). Moving literally thousands of kilograms of gravel and soil is a fairly uncomplicated process, move x from A to B until bag of x is empty. The end result of these projects is always satisfying and final. Not painting, anyway, for the rest of this year I will have much more time for it.
Fishing for roach. Day 6