If you are fearful ....

I am always hording quotations which spur me on and encourage me to take risks and challenge myself. My biggest competitor is myself. 

The other day I came across an American painter who is little known in the UK.  His name is Skip Lawrence and this is what he said about the process of painting:

If you are fearful the image will be uncertain.

Follow your instincts and paint as if you don’t give a damn about the outcome.

Paint feelings, not things.  Work in series and allow each experience to surprise you.

These words resonate with me a lot and because I don't want to paint abstraction for its own sake (it doesn't have a "sake" that makes a lot of sense to me), I want the process to be informed by a narrative about some thing, some place, some body, some where.. and yet I don't want to do narrative painting as such.  As Skip says I want to paint the feelings rather than the things.