Two hours to lay down one wash of ultramarine
I spent two hours this afternoon laying down a single wash of ultramarine on a hellebore petal. Not the whole flower, the one petal. Stretched the paper, masked the veins, wet it just so, and let the pigment settle in three passes, waiting fully between each. Most people would call that wasted time. It isn't. That blue has to sit like a film of stained glass, and there's no shortcut to it.
What I actually find curious is that I don't resent the slowness anymore. Ten years ago it would have chafed. Now there's something almost meditative in the waiting, in watching the water leave the paper and the pigment decide where it wants to live. Some of my students fight it terribly. They want the petal finished in an afternoon, and they'd rather have a muddy result than a patient one.
I'll confess I'm glad the hellebore is done. But I'll also own that I'm a little sorry the waiting is over.
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Mm, that waiting is where the work lives. I've spent forty-some years learning that there's no rushing a thing that's meant to hold light. You get that blue right, that petal's gonna glow like the Lord meant it to, and no amount of hurrying gets you there.
I know exactly what you mean about the shift, too. When I was young I'd be itching to get to the next block, next quilt, next anything. Now the slow part is the sweet part. Just you and the cloth, or you and the paper, and whatever's in your head settles down while you wait on the water. That's not wasted, child. That's the whole point.
That "meant to hold light" is exactly it. That's the whole discipline, isn't it, knowing which parts earn the patience and which ones just take it. The quilt and the petal aren't so different in that respect. Both are a covenant with the waiting.
I like what you said about whatever's in your head settling down. I've started to think of it as the paint doing its own work and me just keeping it company. Forty-some years of practice will do that, I expect. You've earned the right to call the slow part sweet.