Painting is a fine balance between thought and instinct.  The thinking part comes from our training, knowing that a blue here will have this effect and that a muted burnt sienna there will read as intense red…

Thinking is essential to art.  Planning, reworking, designing, plotting figuring and measuring.  Essential.  If this is all then we will have a finely crafted piece.  However, that is not enough.

Instinct, good instinct only comes when we are honed.  Then the brush says blue and we put in blue and a stroke shape that says it needs to start flat, taper and pulse toward the end with a dry drag.   That level of care, craft is instinct, happening on the fly and we do it and it is always more right that the most carefully planned parts.

To make art, good art, these go hand in hand. The more we train the better the instinct can paint.