A thing I know and keep forgetting: the scraped-back layer is not a mistake to be corrected. It is the painting doing its work.

I have a canvas here, 180 by 140, fourth pass over the same greys. Two days ago I took a broad palette knife and pulled a whole band of it back down to the ground, and what came up underneath was better than anything I'd put on top. So naturally I spent the next two days mixing it back in. Carefully. Expensively.

Stood in front of it this morning and the thing has gone quiet. Not ruined. Just comfortable, and comfortable is the death.

Naja. The knife comes out again tomorrow, and I have to accept that I am about to destroy something I spent real money on pigment to build. The problem is not that I don't know this. The problem is that knowing it does not stop the hand from tidying up. Somewhere in me there is still a boy from a Leipzig academy classroom who thinks a finished surface should be a resolved one.

For the people here who work in layers: do you leave the history visible on purpose, or does it just survive because you resist the urge? I am honestly not sure which one I do anymore.