More Pontification.....

i thought i'd talk a little more on the subject of painting today if thats ok
this is actually cut and pasted from a reply i made to a comment made by a good blogger friend BonnieLuria , a few posts back, and i thought it would make an interesting post as well,,, so here it is-------------

(snipped and pasted)
thanks so much Bonnie.
glad my "pontification" was for somebody other than me. i frequently preach to myself, God knows i need it!if nothing else my tombstone will read " mike's favorite expression when asked about his good or bad paintings was, ""it is what it is, and no more""

i dont care that much about the final product. its a byproduct of my real goal, the physical action of painting. the thought process involved, the eye-hand coordination action, the judgement sharpening, the time use and editing skills practice.these are the things that are important until we are "Old Masters"

trying to concentrate on turning out wonderful, sellable, masterpieces should be the last thing we should be thinking about. that kind of thinking only leads to performance anxiety or the opposite, thinking more highly of our work than it is worthy of.

making every piece so precious or being overly critical of it kills the creative process and desire. so paint some crappy subject as if it was a beautiful subject. paint every day no matter what it has to be, or how it looks when we're done. think of EVERY painting as a practice piece. i try to keep in my mind that i havent really been painting finished pieces. i want to think of everything i've done up till now as practice for when i really start painting finished pieces. Man... you wait. when i start doing "real" finished pieces sometime in the future, they are going to be AWESOME. LOL
until then i'll just keep practicing and if they sell, thats a byproduct too!
i hope this kind of thinking will make us all better painters one day.

then i can say i knew you when.....LOL.