Wetting your feet

After so many weeks of inactivity it felt wonderful to hold a brush again but after several tries everything I did seemed forced and flat. I felt like I had forgotten how to paint! Where was my spark? When I took out my palette knife to scrape yet another attempt a little light came on, why not use the knife to move some paint around, play a little, put some color on the canvas?
The mind is a strange instrument. Palette knife paintings are just as challenging as using a brush but somehow it seemed to free me up. I began to enjoy myself. I stopped trying so hard and got into the process of painting, looking at blocks of color, moving the paint around and getting lost in the process. Maybe the lesson is if you can't do what you normally do, just do something.