painting

I should spend more time painting at a kitchen table - this afternoon's hour or so with Helen's daughter Sophia was a splendidly relaxing and absorbing one.  But.  It was rather like Miss Havisham telling Pip to "play, boy."  If you're four and a half, you don't have all that much difficulty in deciding what to paint.  But if you're a bit older ... "what shall I paint," I asked S, hoping for something sensible, like a cat (or, at that age, if you're female, a Princess.  Where did all this Princess stuff come from?).  "Whatever you like."  That's both exciting, but daunting, especially when you just have some very thick brushes, some red paint, blue paint, yellow paint, and green paint, and a sheet of bright green paper.  And my Default Object - still, after fifty years - seems to be A Horse.  OK, of course, I can draw horses pretty well, but you'd think that I'd seize the opportunity to try something else. This seems to indicate such a sad, sad lack of imagination (though I amended things by some pillars with improbable plants growing over them) that I mad an instant vow to sit down, daily, with paints and, well, produce something - I do miss it so much.