This relatively small-sized nugget taught me some big life lessons!   It is my 16″x20″ small but mighty #1 Best Seller!  It also kicked off an earth-tone, foggy lake series that is reminiscent of a visit I had made to the Northeast coast to Anacortes, Washington.

1. Just Start, Don’t Plan.  I’m a planner – I like to see an end vision – and the steps that I’ll be taking to get there.  I like to map out a schedule of milestones, and know about how long it will take to get the prize.  How many times have you NOT started something, because you hadn’t researched enough?  Didn’t have ALL the info?  Didn’t know how to do it exactly? This series came from a complete abandon of “knowing the end game”.  Most entrepreneurs will tell you, they just jumped in, without the perfect plan, before they were “ready”, before they perfected the product.  That’s how this little lovely came about….
2. Listen To Your Gut.  OK, so you don’t have a plan.  This painting started as a pure abstract.  I was guided only by where I felt the color should go.  ALLLLL the feels….it was a long time before I realized that “feels”, and gut, and inner guide, and your heart, and, instincts, and maybe even your higher power or God or whatever name you use…Those are essentially the same!  After I had a nice dry pleasant but basically boring abstract, I had this URGE to add some thin, crisp, high contrast spikes!  Those spikes became the island….
3. Only Fear Disobeying Your Gut!  Art is a fear-mongering-heartland.  It takes courage to start a new painting, pick a big canvas, commit to the colors, and then place the brush to the canvas!  When my gut started to tell me…HEY…what if…I paint little spikes in the middle of this soft cloud of gold tones…the devil on my shoulder was like NOOOOO DON’T MESS UP THIS LOVELY BEGINNING!  I could quote a million people on fear –  but I’ll spare you with just one: