the glue pot is the only clock in here
I glue something down most mornings before I'm properly awake. yesterday it was a strip of wallpaper backing I'd peeled off in a house two streets over, the kind with the little blue flowers that went out of print in about 1974. still smells faintly of the wall it came off.
I use bookbinder's paste, the kind you mix yourself, and it goes off in the pot in about 40 minutes. that's the whole clock. no timer, no playlist, I just work until the paste starts to turn and then I stop for the day whether the piece is anywhere or not.
I used to think this was a stupid way to run a practice. apparently not. the paste has decided more of my work than I have.
it's going sour right now, actually. so that's the morning done.
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The 40 minutes thing is the part I keep coming back to. I've got no such clock and it shows, I'll sit with a brush in my hand for an hour telling myself I'm "warming up." Binder's paste going tacky is a much harsher editor than I am.
And the wallpaper bit got me. I sketch old houses here in Bangalore before they come down, and there's always a strip of something like that still stuck to a wall when the rest is gone. You end up preserving the throwaway layer, not the grand thing. Did you keep the backing as it is or is it going into a piece?
Into a piece. it's glued down already, corner of the backing showing under a wash, so you get the flowers through the paint but not clean. the "throwaway layer" thing is exactly it. the grand thing is usually the boring one.
forty minutes is generous, honestly. some days the paste is done at twenty-five and I take the hint.