An artist’s thoughts on intuition, mark-making, and the courage to begin
The First Mark
Before I make a single mark, the canvas is almost startling in its silence. White, untouched, and waiting, it offers no instructions and makes no promises. It simply leaves room for something to begin.
That first moment can feel intimidating. I may have an idea, but rarely a complete picture. More often, I stand there with only a feeling, a question, or the faintest impulse to move my hand.
Then the canvas seems to beckon.
Come on. Make a mark.
And that first mark takes courage.
Learning to Trust the Canvas
I don’t paint from certainty. I don’t usually begin with a photograph or a finished image in my mind. My process begins with a scribble, a gesture, an impulse. As I wrote in an earlier blog, “83 Years of Scribbling,” the scribble is often where I begin discovering what I am looking for.
I have learned to trust that.
I make a mark, and then I look at it. The mark tells me something, and I answer it with another mark. Before long, I am having a conversation with the canvas.
In a way, it is like meeting a stranger.
At first, you know nothing about each other. You begin with a little small talk. You listen. You respond. Gradually, something begins to reveal itself.
That is how a painting develops for me.
I can’t see the whole thing at once. I have to let it unfold. One mark leads to another, and sometimes the painting takes me somewhere I never expected to go.
That is the part I love—the discovery.
I’m always curious about what will happen next. I think curiosity is one of the great gifts of being an artist. The blank canvas gives me permission to explore rather than to know.
And maybe that is why, after all these years, I still love standing in front of one.
The Courage to Begin
I don’t really know why I have this need to paint. I believe the desire to create is a God-given gift. I have felt that passion for making art for most of my life, and I’ve felt another passion alongside it—the desire to teach.
Both have taught me the same thing:
You don’t have to know the answer before you begin.
You have to be willing to make the first mark.
Life asks us to do that every day.
We make a decision. We start a conversation. We cook a meal. We make something with our hands. We follow an intuition. We take a step without knowing exactly where it will lead.
Those are our life marks.
Some will be beautiful. Some we may wish we could erase. Some will surprise us. But they all become part of the picture.
At 83, I am still learning from the blank canvas.
It still teaches me to trust my intuition, to have courage enough to begin, patience enough to let things unfold, and curiosity enough to see what might happen next.
In my first post, I wrote about the little girl on the Louisiana porch who began by scribbling flowers. I suppose I’m still that girl in some ways. The canvas is still there. The impulse to make the first mark is still there, too.
Perhaps that is all the blank canvas is really asking of us:
Make the first mark.
Then see where it takes you.