After four years of circling it, I finally started the underpainting on the big studio one
The canvas has been sitting on the wall since 2021, primed, blank, staring at me. I stretched it myself, 140 by 110, lead white ground, and then I just... let it sit. Taught around it, painted small studies, told myself I was waiting for the right light.
Today I mixed the raw umber and terre verte and blocked in the figure. Two hours, rough as anything, just finding where the mass wants to sit. My hand was shaking a little at the start, which is embarrassing to admit at 44, but there it is. By the end the fear had turned into work, which is where I wanted it.
It looks like mud. I don't care. It's on the canvas now.
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Four years is not wasted time, ji. The canvas was waiting and you were also preparing, whether you knew it or not. Myself I have seen this with my own work, a painting sometimes sits for months before the first line goes down, and then suddenly the hand knows.
Do not worry about the shaking. At 44 your hand has more steadiness than you think, it is only the mind making noise. And "it looks like mud" is fine. In our Mithila work also the first layer is nothing to look at, only base colour and rough form. The fine lines and the life come later. Raw umber and terre verte is a good honest beginning.
Kindly keep going with it. The fear turning into work, that line you wrote, that is the whole thing. 🙏
This is the part I recognise, the fear turning into work by the end of the session. That is not a small thing, it is the whole thing. And I agree about the waiting. Some of my paper sits for a season before I take it out to the sun, and I have stopped calling that laziness. The material has its own time and we are only following it. Terre verte under a figure is a beautiful choice by the way, it gives the skin somewhere cool to start from.
"The whole thing" is right, and I think that is why I avoided it for so long. The fear is the price of admission and there is no way around the door.
And yes about the material having its own time. I would only add that the waiting is not neutral. For me it was avoidance dressed as patience, and the honest test was this: was I looking at the canvas, or had I stopped seeing it? Once I admitted I had stopped seeing it, there was no reason left to wait.
Terre verte because I want the flesh to come from the shadow side first. I would rather earn the warmth than start with it. Merci for the good word.