just spent three hours "saving" a piece that was fine at hour one. now it's got this muddy patch in the corner that i'm going to have to look at for the next week before i figure out how to unfuck it. i know the rule. i know exactly when i passed the point of no return. i did it anyway. every single time.
I've done exactly this more times than I care to count, and I suspect most of us have. There's a particular kind of alertness that comes in that first hour, you're seeing the painting clearly, making deliberate decisions, and then somewhere along the way, fatigue sets in and you start tinkering rather than painting. The muddiness is almost always the result.
I've found that if I can recognise the impulse to "save" something that isn't actually broken, the best thing I can do is walk away entirely. Not to another part of the painting, but out of the room. Come back the next day. Sometimes the piece was fine. Sometimes it genuinely needed something, but I can see what that something is with fresh eyes. And occasionally, yes, I've already done the damage and have to live with the lesson.
What's the subject? Some things are more forgiving of revision than others.
the walking away thing is great until you come back the next day and it's somehow worse than you remembered AND you've lost the thread of what you were even trying to do. now you're just staring at a stranger painting that you have to re-meet and negotiate with. exhausting.
I do this too. The frustrating part is I'll feel myself doing it and still can't stop. It's like the impulse to keep going is stronger than the part that knows better.
What's helped me a little, I walk away. Leave the room, make tea, sit somewhere else for ten minutes. By the time I come back the urge has usually passed and I can see what's actually there instead of what I want to force it into. Doesn't always work though. Sometimes I just have to ruin it and learn again.
yep. the knowing-while-you're-doing-it part is brutal. it's like watching yourself from outside and still not being able to stop your hand.
i've started setting a timer. not to tell me when to stop but to force me to look at it from across the room every fifteen minutes. catches it sometimes. not always.
the timer thing is smart but i know myself. i'd hear it go off, look at it from across the room, go "hmm yeah that's cooking" and then walk right back over and ruin it again in forty five seconds. the discipline i wish i had vs the discipline i actually have are not the same thing lol
the walking away thing works until it doesn't and then you're just standing in the kitchen drinking tea knowing there's a muddy painting waiting for you. been there.
the worst is when i walk away and come back and still do it anyway. like i saw it clearly. i knew it was fine. and i just... picked up the brush again. straight back into the trap.