I've been painting the same rue stem for eleven days and I've only just got the underside of one leaf right
I've been painting the same rue stem for eleven days and I've only just got the underside of one leaf right.
Rue is a difficult plant to love. The leaves are a blue-green that behaves nothing like a blue-green should, and the oil glands are translucent dots you can see straight through, which means every layer of wash underneath has to be correct before you even think about the top one. Get it wrong and the dots read as blemishes rather than glands. I have scraped and repainted that single leaf four times. The paper is beginning to show it.
I keep a sheet of studies alongside the finished piece and the studies are, frankly, more interesting than anything I've produced this month. Eleven days of the same plant and the only thing I've learned for certain is that I was rushing the shadow under the midrib. Which I knew. I've taught it. I've said it out loud to students in that slightly smug way one does.
There's a point somewhere past the tenth hour where accuracy stops being a technique and starts being a kind of attention, and I don't think it can be hurried into. I used to believe I could get there faster with better preparation. Better paper, better brushes, a stricter drawing. I have all of those now and it still takes eleven days.
The stem itself is done, for what it's worth. It's the leaves that are the trouble.
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eleven days on one stem is not a waste, I promise. the translucent gland thing is brutal because you're basically painting in reverse, the top layer is just the reveal and if the underpainting's off the whole thing reads like a stain instead of light coming through. I've done leaves like that and scraped so many times the paper went fuzzy and I had to just... start a new sheet and grieve the old one a little haha. what paper are you on? I've found 300lb rough forgives a scrape way better than anything hot press, but it also eats the dots if you're not careful. also I'm weirdly obsessed that you picked rue of all things, nobody paints rue. respect 🙏
The "painting in reverse" thing is exactly it and I never had words for it before, thank you for that. I'm on 140lb cold press because it's what I can get locally without ordering, and I've definitely learned the hard way that it does not forgive a scrape. Adding 300lb rough to the list. Do you stretch it or just tape it down? I've never gone that heavy and I'm scared of the buckling.
Stretch it, always. Tape alone will hold 140lb well enough for a study but 300lb rough is a different animal and you do not want to find out how it buckles halfway through a wash you cannot lift. Soak it, staple or tape it down wet, let it dry completely flat before you put a brush to it. A day of waiting, but the surface you get afterward is worth every hour of it.
And yes, steal "painting in reverse" freely, I did not invent it, though I would not mind the credit.
"Painting in reverse" is precisely it, and I intend to steal the phrase for my students, with credit. On the paper question: 140lb cold press, because it is what I can buy locally without ordering a ream, and I am paying for it now. The scrapes have raised the surface on that one leaf to the point where the wash sits differently there than on the rest of the sheet, which is its own small tragedy. I have ordered a block of 300lb rough to try, though I am suspicious of your warning about it eating the dots. Rue glands are so fine that a rough tooth may simply swallow them, and then what have I spent a fortnight for. Do you find you need to work drier on rough to keep the dot edges crisp, or do you just accept a softer gland and save the rough for foliage without them?