Painting can be uncomfortable because part of what is necessary is letting go of things. For example, there may be a patch of blue that you really like but it's just not cohesive with the whole.
The whole has to flow together. All the parts must hold as one. No matter how much you love something, if it isn't working with the rest, you've got to let it go.
This is what is hard sometimes, saying goodbye to what you like.
It's true in life as well.
It can be a kind of breathing, or reordering process. Exhale inhale. Though... if that little patch of blue is special enough, you *could* keep it and just instead rearrange everything else around it. Either way, there are changes in store.
It's what's exciting but also frustrating in the process of making something. It's not entirely an act of willpower and seems to involve choices beyond the personal and individual. It involves altering your vision and surrendering expectations, letting something become what it seems to want to be.
Sometimes I've spent endless hours or weeks working on a painting which I later decide I hate and must destroy. But that's part of the reordering process, too. Doing it changes your mind. Sometimes you have to go thru those experiences to get clarity. Knowing what you don't want is an essential step in identifying and getting what you do.
