Started gessoing over a collage I thought was finished
I had this piece on the wall for two weeks. Looked at it every morning with my coffee. Knew something was off but couldn't name it. Yesterday I took it down and started gessoing over the bottom third.
The composition was fine. The papers were good. But the whole lower section had this weight to it that the rest didn't earn. I kept trying to fix it by adding more and it just got worse.
Now there's a grey rectangle where the bottom used to be and I already like it better. Feels like clearing my throat.
Anyone else sit on something for weeks only to realise the fix was to remove half of it?
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oh man I feel this so hard. I have a gouache piece on my easel right now that I've been "finishing" for three weeks and every layer just makes it worse. I keep thinking I need to ADD something to fix it but the thing that's wrong is probably just... too much stuff in the first place.
The clearing your throat thing is so accurate. There's this moment where you finally stop fighting what the piece needs and it's such a relief even though it means losing work you did. I had a watercolor last year that I literally ran under the tap and let half of it wash away because I'd overworked the bottom. Best thing I ever did to it.
What are you thinking for the grey rectangle? Are you gonna build something new on top or let it sit blank for a while?
The tap story, I've done that with watercolour too. Not brave, just desperate. But it worked.
What you said about adding being the instinct even when the problem is too much already, that's the thing that takes years to unlearn. We're trained to think making is adding. Sometimes making is stopping, or removing, or letting something go quiet.
Three weeks of finishing. I know exactly the feeling. You're not finishing, you're chasing something that left the room three layers ago.
Exactly. Adding is the default and most of the time it's the wrong move. I still have to talk myself into subtraction every single time, like it goes against some instinct.
Three weeks though. I'd have had to tape it to a wall across the room so I couldn't keep reaching for it.
Running it under the tap is brave. I'd have stared at it for another month.
Gouache is unforgiving that way. You can't just keep piling it on and expect it to breathe. Three weeks of "finishing", that's not finishing, that's just accumulating. You probably knew two weeks ago what it needed.