Painted the same window for the 41st time and finally stopped fighting the light

Small thing but I've been chasing this stupid window in my apartment since like March and today it actually did what I wanted.

For anyone new: it's the west-facing one over the fire escape, the light comes in around 4pm and turns everything this gross beautiful orange and I've done it over and over trying to get the shadows to stop looking like mud. Gouache on hot press, 9x12, so there's basically no room to hide. I've been glazing the sill wrong this whole time, laying it too wet and letting it bloom, and this morning I just... didn't. Left it alone. Painted the shape once and walked away from it. Which for me is a huge deal because my whole problem is I keep going back in.

Sitting here looking at it and it's not perfect but the chair leg is actually IN the light now instead of sitting on top of it, if that makes sense?? My partner came home and said "oh that's the good one" and I almost cried at the sink lol. Eight months of no café paycheck and THIS is what I'm celebrating, a chair leg.

Anyway nobody in my family really gets why this is a big deal so I'm telling all of you instead.

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Mateo Serrano·2w

41 times on the same window is the part people won't get, they'll see the final one and think you just sat down and did it. the "left the shape once and walked away" bit is the whole lesson honestly, I have the same fight with glazes, I keep going back in and adding and the kiln just shows me everything I did too much of. hot press at 9x12 with no room to hide is brave too, one wrong edge and the whole thing's done. did the orange come out how you wanted or did it shift on you?

Elin Holm·2w

The kiln showing you everything you did too much of, that's the honest version of it. Paper is gentler, it just quietly loses its tooth and you find out later.

I do torn paper rather than glaze, but the same rule holds. The pieces I like are the ones where I stopped early and left a gap. Every time I've gone back to fix something it got smaller and worse.

Also, 41 times. That's not stubbornness, that's just how long some light takes.

Dani OkaforOP·2w

Torn paper, ok wait, that's a whole different relationship with the edge. Do you tear it and then paint into the deckle, or tear it and let the raw edge just sit there as the edge? Because I keep thinking about how you'd get the softness of that fiber to do something a wash can't and I can't decide if it's cheating or if it's the smartest thing I've ever heard.

And "the pieces I like are the ones where I stopped early" is going straight into my brain, thank you for that, I needed it today.

41 is genuinely just how long it took. I wish I could say there was a method. There wasn't. I just kept setting up at 4 and getting it wrong.

Dani OkaforOP·2w

The kiln thing is so real though, glazes are so unforgiving that way, you don't get a bloom you can pretend was intentional. And yes, the orange shifted on me, it always does. What I wanted was that raw egg-yolk orange right at the sill edge and I got it, but the deeper stuff went more rust than I planned and honestly I think the rust is better? It sits the shadows down instead of letting them float.

Also "no room to hide" is generous of you, I mostly just have no budget for big paper right now haha. But the small size kind of forces the honesty, you either commit to the edge once or you wreck it. Hot press especially, the tiniest wrong touch and it's a permanent bruise.

What are you firing, if you don't mind me asking? Every glaze person I talk to has a whole different relationship with time than I do, you all think in firings and I think in drying minutes.

Ramesh Jha·2w

Forty one times on one window, this is not small thing, ji. I am doing Mithila painting since childhood and my mother used to say the hand must learn the thing by repeating it, not by understanding it first. You painted that sill wrong so many times that your hand finally knew when to stop. The walking away is the real work. In our tradition also, the fine line, we do it in one breath and no going back over it, because the second pass makes it dead. So I understand something of what you are saying. Keep that 4pm light, it is a good teacher. 🙏

Camille Laurent·2w

"The hand must learn the thing by repeating it, not by understanding it first." I have been painting thirty years and I still need to hear this every so often. In the atelier we would draw the same cast for weeks and I hated it, I was sure it was a waste, and it was the only thing that ever taught me value.

Your "one breath" is the same law as a loaded brushstroke. The second pass is where the life goes out, always. And she is right that walking away is the work, that is the part nobody teaches you.

Dani OkaforOP·1w

Thirty years and you still need to hear it, that's weirdly the most reassuring thing anyone's said to me this week, thank you. I keep waiting for the day it clicks and I stop needing the reminder and I'm starting to think that day doesn't come, you just get better at catching yourself before the second pass.

"The second pass is where the life goes out." I want to write that on my easel. I did the atelier thing too, well, the academic version, and I spent a whole semester on one cast drawing and resented every minute of it, and it's the only reason I can see value at all now. Hated it then, would defend it with my life now.

Can I ask, after thirty years, is there a point where the repetition stops feeling like repetition and starts feeling like just... the work? Or is it always a little bit of a fight to sit down with the same thing again? Because 41 times in and I still get a little "oh god not this window" moment before the light shows up and shuts me up.

Dani OkaforOP·2w

Ok the "one breath" thing just rearranged my whole brain. Because that's literally what I couldn't do for months, I kept going back in with the second pass thinking I could fix the shadow and every single time it went muddy and dead. You're saying the tradition already knew that. The line dies on the second pass.

And what your mother said, hand first, understanding after. I think I had it backwards the entire time. I kept trying to think my way into the right value and my hand was just along for the ride. This morning it was the opposite, I wasn't deciding anything, I just knew when to stop. Which is honestly a little scary, like my hand knew something I didn't.

I don't know Mithila painting well at all, the fine line work I've seen is unreal, is it a particular brush or do you use a nib? Because the one-breath thing with a brush sounds like it would take actual decades.