This is the watercolor painting I started playing with on Saturday.

This cut out piece is what I have now.

I wanted to make the rocks more textured and laid several more layers of paint on them. They were looking pretty good but I wasn’t satisfied so I thought I’d add some black lines. This led to trying different crosshatching and squiggly lines. That led to way to much ink on one of the stones which I just couldn’t make look like I wanted.

I was bummed for about 2 seconds and then I thought – cut out the blue mandala to collage with. I tossed the rocks in the trash without any regret.

I’m digging deep into the concept of mistake with my business partner. We’re coming to the conclusion that mistakes are a naturally occurring part of the learning curve. The word originates from old Norse mistaka – to take in error. Usually when we make a mistake it doesn’t have anything to do with taking something.

I am appreciating my “mistakes” more these days because I know I will learn something valuable. My brain will have to get creative, form new thoughts, and come up with a way to “fix” what I’ve done. I’m going to go so far as to say, the more creative a person is, more mistakes will be made, and more ideas will spring from the solutions that is reached.

Lesson for today: Applaud mistakes. What do you think about the concept of mistake?