Same face, eleventh time, and I think the first one was right

I am on the eleventh version of the same woman's face. Toned grey paper, terracotta and a bit of black, all of them lined up on the floor against the skirting board like a police lineup.

The first one, which I did in maybe forty minutes on Monday, is the only one that looks alive. Numbers two through eleven are technically better. Better structure, better shadow under the jaw, the nose is actually a nose and not a smudge I got lucky with. And they are all dead. Flat. Like I drew the anatomy and forgot to put a person inside it.

I don't know what to do with this information. Do I stop at the quick one and trust it? Because it feels like cheating, like saying the sloppy one is better because it was easy. Or do I keep going until I can be careful and alive at the same time, which might be number thirty and might be never.

Frustrating week. Also my pastel box is now a mess of broken terracotta because I dropped it on Thursday, so there's that.

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Margaret Hsu·2w

This happens in botanical work constantly, and it always comes from the same cause: the moment you start correcting, you stop looking. The first drawing was alive because you were drawing what you saw. By the fourth you were drawing what you knew, and knowledge is a poor substitute for observation.

One practical thing. Keep the first one in view while you work on the twelfth. Not as a model to copy, more as a reminder of what your hand does when you are not supervising it. And put the other ten away. Ten corpses on the floor is a very effective way to convince yourself you have lost something you have not.

Dani Okafor·2w

The "drawing what you knew" thing is so real and it's the worst feeling because you can't unsee it once someone names it. I do this with washes constantly, the first one blooms exactly how I wanted and then I go back in to "fix" the edge and kill the whole thing. The edge WAS the point. I killed it on purpose, basically.

But I'd push back a little on the ten corpses thing. I had a teacher who made us keep everything, all of it, the bad ones, and pin them together. Not as a threat. More because the eleventh version being flat is data too, it tells you what your hand does when it's nervous, and that's worth knowing. I don't think you've lost anything, I think you can just only look at one of them at a time or it eats you. Do you find the same thing happens when you switch medium, or is it worse when you're in the one you know best?

Kasia NowakOP·2w

The washes thing is exactly it, killing the edge on purpose while telling yourself you're helping. And the pinning them together idea is honestly a bit scary, I have a folder I never open. But you're right that it is data. I think the flat ones are me drawing the model I already drew once, not the one sitting there. The eleven are all the same because I stopped looking after Monday.

I am going to try pinning three of them up tonight, next to the first. Probably I will hate it, and probably I will learn something anyway.

Kasia NowakOP·2w

"Knowledge is a poor substitute for observation", I am going to write that on the wall above the easel, honestly. The botanical comparison lands harder than it should, because plants do not let you cheat, do they. Wrong leaf is just wrong.

The supervising hand. Yes. That is exactly the feeling and I did not have a name for it until now. Forty minutes on Monday and I was not supervising anything, I was just looking.

I put the other ten in the drawer yesterday. Facedown. The first one is propped against the lamp now and I have not started the twelfth yet, I am a little afraid of it. But it is there, and I am looking at it more than at the drawer, so maybe that is something. Thank you for this, truly.

Roman Petrak·2w

Forty minutes is why. You didn't have time to fix anything, so you had to commit to what you actually saw. After that you started drawing the picture in your head instead of the model.

Same thing happens when I rough out a head in clay. The first twenty minutes it's a person. Two hours later it's a well-made object. Knowing when to stop is most of the job and almost nobody teaches it.

Keep the first one. Don't touch it.

Ramesh Jha·2w

This is true in Mithila painting also, but for different reason. In our work the first line is done in one breath, quickly, because we are taught the line should be alive and not corrected. If you sit and fix, the line becomes dead and everyone can see it. My mother used to say the hand knows before the head. Forty minutes you were still listening to the hand. After that the head came in and started instructing. So keep that first one, yes. But do not throw the others also. Keep them aside for one month, then look again. Sometimes you will find one small thing in number seven worth taking back to the first.

Kasia NowakOP·2w

"The hand knows before the head" is going to live in my head for a long time, I think. And "after that the head came in and started instructing" is painfully accurate, that is exactly the switch that happened around drawing three.

Keeping them a month is hard, because I want to know now. But the way you put it, that number seven might have one small thing worth taking back, that is a much better reason to keep them than the way I keep them now (which is guilt).

Can I ask, in the Mithila work, does anyone ever paint the same figure many times to get at something, or is it one breath and then you move on to the next? I wonder if I am repeating the face because I am learning, or just because I am scared to call one finished.

Kasia NowakOP·2w

Clay, of course. Twenty minutes and it's a person, two hours and it's an object. That is exactly it, and hearing it from someone working in a completely different material makes it feel less like my own private stupidity.

"Drawing the picture in my head instead of the model" is the part I keep circling back to. Because I know the model's face by number eleven, I know the shapes, so I stop looking and start assembling. And an assembled face has no air in it.

The problem is the first one has a wonky left eye and the jaw is mush and I cannot stop seeing those. But you are right. Not touching it. It is going on the wall where I cannot reach it with a pastel.