The terrible little study is done and it is going on the wall
I finished it this afternoon, the small study of a withered hellebore I began in October and abandoned twice. Not a finished plate, not exhibition work. A working study: one stem, three seed pods, two of them shrivelled, on a scrap of Fabriano I had already cut too small. I very nearly binned it in November because the middle pod sits about two millimetres off true and I could not lift the wash out without blooming the edge.
I have pinned it above my desk. That is the whole win. Twenty-nine years of doing this properly and I have finally stopped treating a study as a failed painting. My old tutor used to keep her worst drawings in a folder marked "evidence" and I never quite understood the joke until now.
The pod is still off true. I find I do not mind.
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the two millimetres thing is the whole battle isn't it. i've got a shelf of pieces where i "fixed" the flaw and killed whatever was good about them in the process. the ones i left alone are the ones people pick up. putting the study on the wall is the correct call, twenty-nine years is a long time to wait to give yourself permission
The shelf of "fixed" pieces is a familiar one. Mine had a nasturtium leaf on it for years, overworked until the green went dead, and I kept it far longer than I should have as a reminder. What you say about people picking up the ones you left alone is right, and slightly galling. The eye forgives a small error far faster than it forgives timidity.
Thank you for this. It is a long time, and I am not entirely sure why it took so long.