Painting as Meditation

Painting as meditation is not about getting a good result but finding a place to play.  Here, for example, I am sitting with my back propped against a rock on a hillside amongst trees.  I want to be out here with the wind and the threat of rain, hard earth under my backside, birds around me.  My aim is not to find a picture and use artists' techniques to put it on the page.  That is not the anxiety I want to confront.  There are other anxieties that flutter at the back of my conscious mind, which normally I ignore or allow to whisper in the shadows: time is passing; I am going to die; am I worthwhile; do I please myself; do I please others?  When I paint these questions come into the foreground but in a healthy awareness of the present moment.  I learn to live with what my eyes see and the corresponding marks my hand makes.  This is what makes it a meditation and it doesn't have to be good.  It just is what it is.