Ashdown Forest in Sussex. September 2011. The familiar clump of Scots pines on the Southern Slopes, stunted in their growth by exposure to the prevailing winds, made for a nice composition in the hazy afternoon light of early autumn. The expectation exceeded the execution and after I had finished the painting there were a number of elements that irked me: uniform detail, not well-rendered across the foreground; foliage on the trees that was too dark and solid; stripey sky that was supposed to be a nice smooth transition from cool to warm. Let's stop there!

Some context. I was preparing for my first solo exhibition, a two month display at the visitor centre on the Ashdown Forest, a lovely, old half-timber barn conversion, where I could display (and hopefully sell) 30 paintings. I had compiled a collection of scenes of The Forest, but as I discussed them with my framer, I realised I only had 29. It took a little discussion between me and myself before I decided to include this painting, to complete the 30. The painting annoyed me - I knew where the problems were. I didn't want others to see it. Inevitably, it was the first painting to sell, in what ended up being a successful exhibition and the final push for me to 'turn pro.'

To this day it remains one of the most important lessons that I have learned and it's never far from my mind. When we paint a scene we become inextricably linked with the process of painting it; we have our preconceptions of what we want it to look like and how we should achieve that, technically. The capricious nature of watercolour is such that we are not always able to say precisely what we want and we get caught up appraising our own work based upon individual brushstrokes and passages that didn't quite work out as intended. With regard to this painting, I knew where the technical problems were, where the bodies were buried; the viewer didn't. Without being party to the painting process and my own perceived shortcomings, they viewed the painting as it should be viewed - a simple expression of the Southern Slopes and it struck a chord with them.

Recently, I've had a similar experience with a painting of mine that I sold through my gallery in Swanage. I remember painting this and thinking that there was something I had done that was worthy of consigning it to the bin. I had taken some time and effort to paint it and recalled my Ashdown Forest experience, so decided to press on and display it in the gallery.

A couple of weeks before it sold, I was in the gallery and I looked at the painting, framed and on the wall by this time, and for the life of me I couldn't recall what it was that had annoyed me while I was painting it. In fact, I looked at it and thought "I quite like that, and oh yeah, I did really well to keep the detail in the left side tree and foreground bushes to minimum." Learning point Number 2 - most of your displeasure with your paintings relates to the immediate mechanics of painting them. Allow a little time to elapse and you might be surprised by how well you have done.

OK......I hear you; you're all thinking this is a rather verbose way of saying you are your own worst enemy, or your own harshest critic. Probably true, but hopefully this helps to give you a little insight into why that might happen and, most importantly, why you need a very light hand on the tiller when it comes to judging your own work.

Olly