Feet, feet and more feet.  Drawing this lower extremity is fun.  Feet can be very expressive.  We are used to hand gestures in paintings but feet can be story tellers too.

I am working on a new dance painting where both, feet and hands, are very important.  When you are eager to start a new painting it is so tempting to just jump in as the idea rushes you—like a vacation romance. While this can yield some clever brushwork—well, and some true disasters as well—more often it is better to rehearse the parts, to dig in and find better and better ways to paint that initial flush of an idea.

I always figure if I have a good painting idea it is worth putting the work into the prep and refinement.  Most good ideas reward you for the efforts.

We always envision artists working in a frenzy of inspiration—and I guess we do, sometimes—but to achieve that spontaneous, seemingly effortless beauty of brushwork on the canvas it is necessary to rehearse, study, find the right lines, colors and forms—before you just start scrubbing around on the canvas.

(feet studies, 8×8 inches)