Practise, pauses and carrying on

When I get despondent in my practise I turn to Vincent. I find his letters exist in a timeless zone waiting for the weary and fed artists of generations to stumble upon them .He details his practise with its many trials and tribulations along the way, the stuff of life, very earthy, ordinary and in places tortuous. Here is Vincent trying to ‘see’ better

“…I have spent more on making an instrument for studying proportion and perspective, the description of which can be found in a book by Albrecht Dürer, and which the old Dutch masters also used. It makes it possible to compare the proportion of objects near by with those on a more distant plane, in cases where construction according to the rules of perspective is not possible. And when one tries to do it with the eye alone - unless one is an expert and very far advanced - it is always hopelessly wrong…”

Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
The Hague, 3 June 1882

And this made me smile because it was exactly what I needed to hear and from someone who does it and knows the terrain.

“..Art is jealous, and demands our whole strength; and then, when one devotes all one's powers to it, to be looked upon as a kind of unpractical fellow and all kinds of other things - yes, that leaves a bitter taste in one's mouth. Oh well, we must try to carry on..”.
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Anthon van Rappard-The Hague, 4 or 5 June 1882.
I read in one of the deleted sessions yesterday Seth telling a woman if she painted for an hour each morning she would feel much better and Vincent says, carry on.