I've reached a point, I think, where I've mastered painterly "tricks" (how specific they are to my five-year-old-and-counting brushes remains to be seen, when I purchase myself a new set this summer...) and with that has returned a sort of amateurish phobia: that a signature style has developed into a stylistic dependence.
I drafted a manifesto once that outlined vague "rules" in painting, such as: do not use white pigment until the final layer (--I've since X'd out this one--); when blending turns to unconscious muddy-ing, hit it strike it and drip it (the gung-ho enthusiasm can take a back seat but I'll still share a ride with it); etc.
The manifesto served its purpose, but has become historical -- because I've moved on from essential rules, and believe more in a dynamic system: if I do this, then I need to do that (for example, if I use bright colors, then I should thin them out). And in a moment when you take your circulating system and drive a dagger right into its flesh, it hopefully can adapt, first by absorbing the shock, then assimilating it into a new web of functions. The hardest part is thrusting the dagger, and the second hardest part is sticking out the recovery.
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