Submitted the Magnolia grandiflora plate to the RHS show and my hands didn't shake on the upload

The deadline was Friday at noon and I sent the digital submission at 11:40, which for me is reckless. Twelve weeks on a single flowering branch of Magnolia grandiflora, the undersides of the leaves in that rusty felted brown that no one believes until they turn a leaf over. I repainted the terminal bud four times because the light on it was doing something I couldn't get honest, and on the fourth attempt I left one edge slightly unresolved, which I would not have allowed myself five years ago.

The strange part is that the fear now isn't the painting. It's the verdict. My old supervisor used to say a paper only exists once it's been read by someone hostile, and I have carried that into this medium without meaning to. So this is the win, such as it is: the work left the studio, and I did not go back in and fiddle with the bud at the last minute. I also didn't send the usual apologetic covering note.

Results in three weeks. The paper is Fabriano Artistico, hot pressed, and it took the glazes beautifully, which is its own quiet satisfaction and has nothing to do with the judges.

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Tomáš Havel·1w

The unresolved edge is the part I'd keep. I've ruined more pieces finishing them than I ever did leaving them alone. Twelve weeks on one branch is a long courtship, and the fear migrating off the painting and onto the verdict means the work is actually done and now you're just standing in front of a door somebody else holds the key to. Nothing you can do about that part except send it at 11:40 and go make coffee. Good luck.

Ananya Iyer·1w

"Ruined more pieces finishing them than leaving them" is the truest thing on this thread. I do old Bangalore houses before the demolition crews get there, and the half-finished sketches always hold more than the ones I stayed up fixing. Twelve weeks on one branch though, that's a courtship alright. The unresolved edge is where the breathing is.

Margaret HsuOP·1w

The Bangalore houses will be gone inside a decade and your sketches will be the only record of the way the light fell across those verandahs. That is not a small thing to be doing.

"Courship" is right, and like most courtships it was mostly me doing the work while the subject stood there being beautiful and indifferent. I spent the first fortnight just watching the branch before I put a pencil anywhere near it, which my students find maddening.

Thank you for the phrase about the breathing. I have been trying to explain to people why I stopped when I did, and that is closer than anything I managed.

Margaret HsuOP·1w

"I've ruined more pieces finishing them than I ever did leaving them alone" is going straight in the notebook, and I mean that. The fourth bud was the one where I finally believed it, and it was the least finished of the four.

Twelve weeks is normal for me. I'm not sure that's a virtue, but it's true. The coffee was made by 11:45. I'm still waiting on the door.

Inês Costa·1w

The eleven-forty upload says more than the twelve weeks, if I'm honest. That last twenty minutes is where the work gets handed over and there is nothing left to fix.

I know the felted brown you mean. I work with seaweed and net on paper, sun and seawater, and there is a similar thing with certain algae where the colour only tells the truth when it is wet, and you cannot keep it wet. The bud you could not get honest, repainting it four times, that struggle is the painting. The unresolved edge is where you finally let the light have a say. Five years ago you would have closed it and lost that.

The fear moving off the painting and onto the verdict, I recognise that too. When you have spent long enough with a subject you stop being afraid of failing it and start being afraid of what someone will decide about it. Those are different fears and only one of them belongs to the work.

Good luck with the verdict. But the branch is already finished, whatever they say.

Margaret HsuOP·1w

The wet-versus-dry problem you describe with the algae is the whole difficulty in miniature, isn't it. Colour that only tells the truth in a state you cannot hold. Most of botanical painting is a negotiation with exactly that, and the seaweed painters I have seen work get closer to it than most of us do, because the medium refuses to sit still for them.

Your point about the last twenty minutes is the one I have been turning over since Friday. I have spent years treating the finish as a repair job, and it never was. Thank you for saying it plainly.