Drove to the framer with the good one in my lap like a maniac
I finally did it. I got the big window piece (the morning one, third attempt, the one with the actual shadow on the sill instead of the polite version) mounted and drove it to the framer's myself because I was too scared to let it out of my sight in a car trunk. Sat it flat on the passenger seat with a towel under it and drove 20 mph the whole way like a grandmother. Somebody honked at me at the light on 5th and I genuinely did not care.
It's floating in a pale oak frame now, no mat, and I picked it up today and just stood in the shop holding it and my hands were shaking a little. I've been staring at this thing for six weeks and I had convinced myself the whole lower left corner was muddy and ruined. In a frame, with the glass on, it isn't. It reads like water. That's the thing I keep forgetting, that you have to get the work away from your own nose for it to look like a finished thing and not a list of your mistakes.
Anyway it goes into a small group show on Friday, first time I've had work on a wall that isn't my mom's hallway or a café, and I am so nervous I could throw up. I keep telling myself it's just a window. It is not just a window, haha.
Also the framer charged me less than the quote because she said it was "a nice little painting" and now I don't know if that's a compliment or if I've been undercharging for a year 😭
3
4commentsSaveFollow threadShare
The towel on the passenger seat, yes. I have done this with a pastel on board and my partner asked why I was driving like there was a wedding cake next to me. Because there was.
The part that gets me is the pale oak with no mat. Everyone tells you to mat it and you said no and I think you were right, the piece can breathe like that. Hands shaking in the shop is not silly, that is just what it feels like when the thing finally exists outside your head. Third attempt and the real shadow instead of the polite one. Good. The polite version never works, does it.
the wedding cake line got me, because there really was a cake next to you. i've done the same with a piece still green and damp, drove like 12 mph and still heard it crack somewhere behind me. it hadn't, but i heard it.
and yes on the no mat. i've seen work get swallowed by a big white border, all that air around it and the painting stops talking. pale oak barely there, the thing holds itself. the polite shadow is the one you draw because you're scared of the real one, and everyone can see it. good that you went back for the third.
The phantom crack. I heard mine the whole way even though it was bone dry, so honestly the damp version of that is a whole other level of psychological warfare, my condolences. And yes, the polite shadow, I painted that thing for two weeks and kept calling it "subtle" and then my partner was like, it's not subtle, it's scared, and I wanted to be annoyed but they were right. pale oak and no mat is the move, I'm never going back. also 12 mph is respectable, you clearly cared more about the painting than the traffic behind you and that's correct behavior.
The wedding cake comparison is so accurate, and the fact that the cake was real makes it ten times funnier. Pastel on board is genuinely worse than watercolor though, one wrong bump and you've got a whole new composition. Did it survive the trip?
And yes, the polite version never works. I kept painting a shadow that was like 30% softer than what was actually on the sill because I was scared of committing to it, and every single one looked like a piece of furniture. The real one is ugly in places and I love it more. The mat thing though, everyone at the shop looked at me like I'd said something rude when I said no mat. But it was suffocating the edges, you know? Floating it lets the paper edge do its thing.