I have come up with a new theory on life. We are born artists and every day is a new art work.

Some are bad, some a really bad and some are surprisingly interesting.

The thing about artists is that they go through phases. Some works are well-received, some wind up in galleries and others gather dust in back sheds.

Making art is as much about inspiration and talent as it is about technique and discipline.

You can learn how to paint, sculpt or draw in exactly the same way you can learn to live a good life. Discipline is required to get up and apply that knowledge; to get out of bed and do everything in your power to create a beautiful day.

You also need to have an idea. What is that you want to achieve? What colours and medium and style will you use? That’s why it’s important to know what you want. You can never create a beautiful life if you don’t even know what that looks like.

The other thing about artists is that they keep at it. Most work until the day they die. Some of them won’t do their best work until later in life because it takes that long to get really good. They don’t sit around lamenting the fact that the paintings they did at art school were dreadful because they were part of the learning process.

And so it is with life. All those mistakes, all those bad or hard days, are what teach us how to live better. Don’t worry about the past, don’t worry about getting older, don’t worry about any of it; just keep working at getting better.