Back from holiday and wanting to paint again, I began by cleaning the plates that I use as palettes. The acrylic paint left on them had hardened, so I scraped it first. Then sprayed with water to soften it a little, scraped again, wiped.

The result was not just clean, empty plates ready for new paint but also a focussing down, a limbering up of fingers and wrists, a wiping away of mental mess, a preparation of possibility, a commitment to starting over.

Again.

However many times it takes.