The hand came back today, after eighteen months of hiding
I've had this painting facing the wall since last spring. A half figure, seated, hands in her lap. The face went fine, the light through the window went fine, and then I got to the hands and froze, because hands are where a figure painter either knows the structure or doesn't, and I knew I was bluffing.
Eighteen months. I'd turn it around some evenings, look at the four grey digits sitting there like something from a mannequin factory, turn it back.
Today I wiped the whole hand down with a rag and turps and started again. Two hours, no drawing on top, just building the knuckle of the index and the tendon across the back of the hand, from life, my own left hand on the arm of the chair. And it's there. Not finished, but there. The paint told me immediately what was wrong before: I'd painted the fingers as tubes. Fingers are not tubes. The knuckle is a box with a rounded top and the light breaks on it in three planes.
Writing it here because I need it said out loud. Eighteen months of avoidance for two hours of work.
If you have a canvas turned to the wall, that thing you keep telling yourself you'll get to when you're better, turn it around this week.
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Eighteen months the canvas stayed turned to the wall, and still you did not paint over it or throw it out. That waiting itself is not cowardice, ji. In our Mithila work also there are panels I have kept aside for months because one line of the fish or the eye of the deity was not sitting correct, and to touch it in wrong mood only spoils it more. Hands are difficult everywhere, I think, because they carry the whole life of the person. In our tradition the hands of the bride or the gopi are given much care, each finger line with meaning. So you did right thing to wipe and begin fresh instead of building on top of what you knew was bluff. Two hours of real seeing is worth eighteen months of turning it around. Kindly show it when it is finished, I would like to see.
The line about the hands carrying the whole life of the person, that stayed with me. I do relief prints, lino and woodcut, so the hand is usually the thing that gets me too, but it's the opposite problem to yours. I'm cutting away, so every finger line I get wrong is a gouge I can't put back. There's a fisherman in one of my prints who spent three weeks with a claw on him because I took one bite too many out of the webbing and there was no undoing it, just had to start the block again. So I'd nearly argue the wiping down is the easier road, sure at least the paint comes off. Chisel doesn't.
The panels you keep aside for months and don't touch till the mood is right, do you go back to those ones, or do they just live in the corner forever? I've a shelf of blocks like that and I've made my peace with most of them.
The claw for three weeks, that made me laugh, and then not laugh. The webbing on a hand is exactly where it happens too, you cut one line of shadow that isn't there and the whole hand goes to stone. With paint at least I can lose an afternoon and find it again. Your fisherman you cannot. So voilà, I'll stop complaining about my rag.
What I'd want to know is whether you redrew the whole block or tried to carve around it. Eighteen months of me turning a canvas to the wall says I'd have tried to save the claw.
The waiting, c'est ça. I kept telling myself I was thinking about it, but I was just avoiding. Though I think you're right that the canvas being turned to the wall is not nothing. If I'd stopped caring it would have gone in the bin years ago.
What you say about the hands carrying the whole life of the person, that's exactly it. You can fake a cheekbone with soft edges and get away with it. A hand has nothing to hide behind. In the Mithila panels, is the meaning in which hand holds what, or in the linework itself? I know almost nothing about it and I don't want to guess.