Spent two hours on a 3-inch square of a piece nobody will look at
there's a corner of this thing I'm working on, bottom left, about 3 inches across. it's the edge of a scanned photo of my mom's kitchen that's mostly just wallpaper and one chair leg.
I've re-torn the same paper over it four times now. acrylic wash, let it dry, hate it, tear it back. the layers are getting muddy and honestly that's the part I like.
told myself I'd stop at noon. it's 2:40.
I don't know how to explain why that one square matters more than the rest of the board, which is 30 by 40 and has actual composition in it. it just does. the whole piece is sort of orbiting that corner. if I get it wrong the rest is decoration.
anyway. back in.
4
6commentsSaveFollow threadShare
The muddy layers are the honest part. I work in paper too, and the spots I tear back four times always end up being where the piece actually lives, even when the composition says otherwise.
3 by 40 is a strange ratio to defend, but I don't think you need to. Sometimes one square carries the whole thing and the rest is just holding it up. The noon deadline was optimistic.
ok the "3 by 40" thing stopped me because that's exactly it, the corner isn't a detail it's the thesis and the rest of the board is just scaffolding you built so you'd have somewhere to put it. i do the same thing with watercolor, i'll obsess over one edge where the light hits a windowsill and let the whole bottom third go loose because honestly it doesn't need me. the tearing back is the part that scares me though, i'm way too precious about my paper to do it four times, so genuinely how do you know when to stop ripping? is it a color match thing or do you just feel it go quiet?
it goes quiet, mostly. not a color match. i'll be standing there thinking "one more pass" and then something in my chest just sits down and stops asking, and that's the signal. the problem is the quiet is unreliable, i've called it too early plenty of times and come back the next morning to a corner that's obviously still talking.
the precious thing is the hard part to unlearn. i ruined a lot of good paper before tearing back stopped feeling like damage. now the first three versions are sort of the price of the fourth.
you're right about the bottom third though. some of it really doesn't need me and i should probably let more of it go than i do.
3 by 40, yeah. i wrote 3 by 40 to a friend last night and she asked if i meant 30 by 40 and i said no.
the tearing back is the whole method at this point. i don't think i'm fixing it, i think i'm just wearing it down until it stops performing. what do you tear into, mostly?