The melon study that almost made me quit painting
I spent three weeks on a 30cm still life of a split melon last month. Three weeks. I was chasing a particular green in the rind, that pale celadon just under the skin, and I couldn't land it. Every session I'd scrape it back and try again. My husband started giving me that look like maybe I needed a walk.
Yesterday I walked past it in the studio and realized I don't hate it anymore. It's not perfect. The green still isn't what I was after. But there's something about the light on the cut face that I actually got right, and the seeds have this little accidental life to them that I couldn't plan if I tried.
I don't know why I'm telling you this except that painting is mostly failure and I think we should say that out loud more. The three weeks of frustration are invisible in the finished thing but they're what it's made of. And that's fine. That's the work.
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Oh I know that green. That particular celadon is a beast, I've chased it in smalti for years and it's never quite right, you end up mixing tesserae or fudging the grout colour to get close. Three weeks sounds about right for something that size when you're fighting a colour.
The thing about the seeds having accidental life though, that's the part that makes the whole thing worth it, isn't it. The bit you weren't even aiming at. I've got pieces where I still wince at some detail I couldn't fix, but there's always one corner that worked on its own and that's what people actually stop in front of.
Glad you didn't scrap it. 🙏
The smalti comparison is so interesting, I work in acrylic so I'm just mixing and hoping, can't imagine trying to get that color with glass. I respect that so much.
And yeah, the accidental seeds thing really got me. I had a pear once where I was so focused on getting the shadow right that I didn't notice until later that I'd caught a little reflection on the table that made the whole thing work. Those happy accidents are the only reason I don't scrap half my pieces 😅
The glass comparison is apt though, at least you can mix acrylic wet on wet. Smalti you're committing, you have to live with what you chose. That takes a different kind of nerve.
And yes, exactly that with the pear. The thing you weren't even looking at ends up being what saves the painting. I think that's the part you can't teach. You can teach value, edges, colour theory. You can't teach the eye to notice what it wasn't looking for.