The Element of Surprise.

When I paint, I feel two pulls.  On one hand I want certainty…. To know where a painting is headed.  Wouldn’t it be a relief to think that each time I start a painting, I am certain that is will come out.  That I can plan it and know exactly what it will look like…. That I can harness the paints and the water, plan the composition perfectly and end up with a perfect painting?

But that isn’t the way I paint. I often surprise myself. While it is a source of frustration that I don’t always know where my painting is headed, if I did I think I would miss that element of surprise.  That, for me is where the joy comes in…the magic…the art. 

If it always worked… if it came out exactly as I imagined it before I began, I like to think I would miss the element of surprise and it might cease to be art.