These change with circumstances, life stage, age, health, mood and outside incentives and pressures. Was it not ever thus?

My biggest challenge is saying ‘no’ politely; my default is to buckle and say ‘yes’ and quickly reverent it and then have to wriggle free. But if I never said yes I’d never do anything?

A challenge is different to a problem. I have come to think of a challenge as a stimulant to curiosity and gaining experience. Ones under my control are preferred.

I’m not going to specify any personal or family challenge here. Rather I’m going to default to a handful of projects, each worthwhile challenges – all art related.

Spread around my temporary studio (the sitting room) I can see four framed pictures of mine, the same number of boards with partially completed works on them, a tree stuck to the back door which I use as a light box and various sketch books where there are pen or pencil drawings of this same tree.

The beech and horse ink illustration, despite appearances, is ‘just’ a draft. I bought a fancy sheet of A1 cartridge paper yesterday and will figure out how to process this in due course – it needs to be on an easel or A1 sized light box. And I have to figure out how to avoid ever dripping blobs of ink onto the sheet – so more practice is required with dip pen, nibs and the correct ink.

The ancient beech and companion oak (tree 12 in Markstakes Common) is on its 9th or 10th iteration. I am dancing around it trying out different ways to achieve my goal of showing the entire trees, the beech pollard and the surviving mature oak that runs up through its centre and commands the crown: it has a story to tell. I have 100+ photos across all seasons, and a dozen videos. My frustration is that when I go out, as I did two days ago, and knock out a 3 minute sketch it is this/that which does the job far better than anything I subsequently fus over. What happens is that given time I add the true complexity of the tree but as a result lose what it is saying – a case of too many branches to see the tree?