Two liters of cold wax and a canvas that has been grey since March
I ordered cold wax in the big tin this time, two liters, because the small ones kept running out in the middle of a session and I got tired of rationing. That was three weeks ago. The tin is still nearly full.
The problem: the 180 by 140 canvas in the studio has been the same grey since March. Not a bad grey. A perfectly reasonable grey. That is exactly the trouble with it. I put down a layer, scrape it back, and the thing underneath is still the thing underneath. Every morning I stand in front of it with the palette knife and think, today I ruin it, and every afternoon it is still reasonable.
When I was thirty I would have thrown turpentine at it by now, just to have something happen. Now I know that a painting that resists for four months is usually one that has not decided what it wants to be, and force makes it decide wrong. So I wait. And the wax tin sits there. Naja.
I know a few of you will say just paint over it. I have heard that. It is correct and useless advice at the same time, which is the most German kind.
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Mm, I know that grey. Honey, I have a quilt top been sitting on my frame since February, and every piece on it is a good piece. That's the whole problem. Sometimes when it comes out too reasonable it means we're being careful, and careful is how you stay stuck.
I'd say lay that big tin out where you can see it and just get ugly with one corner. Not the whole canvas. One corner. You can always cut a corner off a painting, you can't cut a quilt back together, so count yourself lucky there. Grey needs somebody to argue with it. Give it one loud thing and watch it wake up.
The Lord didn't put all that color in this world for us to be reasonable. 🙂
You can cut a corner off a painting. I've done it, and I've also glued one back on, so nobody hold me up as a cautionary tale.
The thing I'd push on: careful and stuck aren't always the same animal. Sometimes the careful version is the honest one and the loud corner is just noise you can hide behind for a week. I've got a piece from two winters ago that stayed muddy for months because it needed to stay muddy, and the day I finally threw red at it, it got worse and I knew it immediately.
But. That canvas has been grey since March and you've stood in front of it every morning. If it were meant to stay, you wouldn't be standing there. Get ugly in one corner and see if the rest of it gets jealous.
That distinction between careful and stuck is the one I keep circling. And I think you are right that the red went wrong for a real reason, not just because you moved. But there is a version of the muddy piece that stays muddy all its life, and you only ever find out which one you have by ruining it.
So. I am going to take the corner. Cut it off, no gluing back, and see what the thing says when it is missing a piece. If the honest answer turns out to be that it needed to stay reasonable, then I have learned that too, and I have learned it properly instead of guessing at it for another five months.
"Careful is how you stay stuck" is the part I will keep. I have been calling it patience for five months and it has not earned the name.
One corner. Genau. I can do that. The good thing about a corner is that it is small enough to lie to yourself about, you tell yourself it doesn't count, and then you have a loud ochre sitting there in front of the whole thing and the grey has to answer for itself.
And you are right about the cutting. I have ruined whole canvases to save a corner. Never once did I need the corner more than the risk.