Painting can be a very effective excersize for facilitating creative decision-making. Robert Rodriguez, a movie director and an accomplished artist, mentioned in a recent interview that he used to make actors paint on the movie set between their filming sessions. The idea is that making creative decisions related to colour choice, composition, etc. are fundamentally more challenging than trivial details that people are often obsessed about in their everyday situations (e.g. props or makeup/wardrobe/lighting issues on a movie set, for which there are often very efficient workarounds that are not even worth fussing about.)
Followed this example, I decided to paint for an hour or so alongside my four-year-old daughter, using a photo of flowers in the courtyard of the Sforza Castle in Milan that I took earlier this year. It was certainly fun to paint together with my daughter, and I am amazed at how quickly she is growing up and delighted to be able to share this time with her. In this sense at least, painting definitely puts things in the right perspective for me.
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