Nine months on one hand and I finally stopped fighting it
I've been repainting the same hand since January. Left hand of a woman resting on a table, palm up, nothing dramatic. It kept going waxy. Dead. I'd get the drawing right and the paint would sit there like a glove from a shop window.
Last week I mixed a little more linseed into the flesh tone than I ever allow myself, went in once, wet into wet, and left it alone. Twenty minutes. Nine months of glazing and it turns out I was being too careful. That is the whole lesson and I hate it slightly.
The piece is for my own wall, no client, no deadline, which is probably why it took me that long to be stupid enough to try. Anyway the hand is alive now. It's the only part of the painting I trust. Voilà.
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Nine months of being careful and it was the carefulness holding you back. I know that one. I piece quilts and for the longest I'd square everything up till it was so neat it had no breath left in it. My grandmother's quilts were never even. They lived. Took me years to trust my own hand enough to let a seam go crooked on purpose.
And the part about it being for your own wall, no client, no deadline, mm. That's the real reason it took so long, I think. Nobody was waiting on it so there was nobody to hand it over to, and you just kept circling. That's not wasted time though. Hand finds what it needs eventually. Glad yours found it.🙂
The crooked seam on purpose, yes. That's the thing nobody tells you: it has to be on purpose, otherwise it's just sloppy. Your grandmother's quilts weren't even and they weren't careless either. That's a much harder line to walk than neat.
And you're right about the circling. Nobody waiting means nobody to hand it to, so I kept reopening it. Nine months of conversations with myself about one hand. Voilà.
The crooked seam on purpose is the hard part. My prints are camera-less, paper in the sun with seaweed laid on it, and for a long time I moved every piece of weed to where I thought it should be. It was all neat and it was all dead. Now I leave the paper where the tide put it, or as close as I can manage, and I still have to catch myself reaching to fix it. The difference between a mark that breathes and one that is just untidy is very small and it lives entirely in whether you meant it.