yes, my thought for today... is going round in cirlces sometimes necessary to learn? 

We've all done it at sometime or another whether it's trying to solve a puzzle in art or trying to find the lost keys that you knew you left in the kitchen.  eg, you walk aournd the kitchen 3 times lifting everything and looking in every draw, nook and cranny (even though you only checked them a few minutes before, expecting, hoping that they might miraculously appear)  So you stop, take stock and think hard.  How am I going to solve the puzzle of the missing keys???  Instead of doing another tour of the kitchen (whcih obviously ISNT working for me) lets think logically ...when did I last have them?  what was i doing at the time? what route did I take through the house? And HEY PRESTO!!! you remember they are in your jean pocket in the bedroom!

For days now I have been trying to solve the puzzle of how to make the shadows on the portrait I'm doing look luminous by using reflected colours from the rest of the painting.  Each day I have started again and basically repainted the face only to end up with the same overall muddy looking colours.  Hmm... somethings not working for me here ...am I really going to make the same mistakes again? Time to stand back, take stcok and think hard about what else I could try?  How about chnaging the red from a warm one to a cooler one?  Ah ha YES!  this works much better!!!  Still a long way to go but one of the cogs fell into place.

As infurating as they are, circles are necessary.  why? because when we discover something for ourselves it sinks in deeper.  how easy would it have been for someone to look over my shoulder and say "try the alizarin" but how much would that have impacted on me the next time I was struggling with a similar problem.