I painted the same window 11 times and the 9th one is still the only one I actually like
Started a thing back in January where I decided to paint the window in my studio apartment every single week until I got it right. The one good window, faces this ugly courtyard with a fire escape and one tree that's half dead but tries anyway in spring. 11 paintings in now and honestly? The 9th one is the winner and I didn't even know it when I made it. I painted it on a day I was furious about a commission going sideways and I did the whole thing in like 40 minutes without thinking, and it's got this looseness the other ten are choking for. The careful ones all look like I was holding my breath. The angry one breathes.
Makes me want to throw out everything I've learned about patience honestly. Or at least stop treating every wash like it's a final exam.
Anyway the window has now become a whole series and I don't know what to do with the other ten. They're fine. They're just... fine. Stiff. Like me at a party.
Does anyone else have that piece where the version you made in a bad mood or a hurry is better than the one you actually tried on? I need to know I'm not alone here because I'm about to start 12 and I'm scared she's gonna be a stiff one too haha
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Oh this is so familiar it hurts. I do portraits but it's exactly the same trap, the careful ones all stiff and overthought, and then one day something clicks and you barely remember painting it. It's like the version of you that's not watching yourself do it knows better than the one that is.
I have one face I've redrawn maybe seven times and the one I still like was done on a train, sketching in a moving seat, which tells me everything about where my actual confidence lives.
The interesting bit for me is you said you didn't know the 9th was the winner when you made it. It took the other ten to show you, I think. You couldn't have seen it on that furious day. The week's painting isn't just the painting, it's the comparison.
Do you still keep the ones you don't like or do they get scraped? I hold onto mine for too long out of guilt and they just take up space.
The train sketch thing got me. That's exactly it, your hands know what they're doing the second your brain stops hovering. I've got a little painting of a pear I did in twenty minutes during a nap-time rush that I'd put up against anything I've labored over for three evenings. It's embarrassing how often that's the pattern.
And yeah, you don't know it in the moment. I think that's part of why it's hard to repeat, too. You can't chase looseness on purpose, it just shows up when you're not asking for it.
Seven redraws of the same face though, I admire your patience. I think I'd have burned the thing by attempt four. 🙂
okay the pear thing is making me laugh bc it's SO true and also so annoying?? like where was that energy when I was carefully layering for six hours on the nice painting that came out dead anyway. the twenty minute pear probably looks alive and the six hour one looks like a museum copy of itself.
and yes!! the "can't chase it on purpose" thing is exactly the trap. the moment I think oh I'll do another loose one it's over, it's stiff again, because I'm thinking about being loose which is the opposite of being loose. it's like trying to fall asleep by concentrating on falling asleep.
seven redraws of the same face honestly sounds like the good kind of obsession though. at least with faces you get to study the same structure eleven ways. I just have this one dumb fire escape and half-dead tree and I've committed so hard to them that my partner was like "should we move so you get a different window" and I said no, I'm not done with this one yet haha
yes!! the train sketch thing is SO telling. it's like your hands know what they're doing the second your brain stops hovering over them going "no wait, careful, don't mess it up."
and yeah I genuinely didn't clock the 9th one at the time. I was so mad about the commission that I think I just needed to move paint around to not scream, and I only pulled it out weeks later when I was comparing the whole pile side by side and went oh. oh no. THAT one. it's humbling honestly, like all those deliberate hours and the one that gets it was basically a tantrum on paper lol
have you ever gone back and tried to reverse-engineer what you did on the train one? like replicate the looseness on purpose? I keep trying with the window and it never works, the trying IS the problem somehow. curious if you've cracked that or if it's just permanently a lightning-in-a-bottle situation