Seeing is Believing, Sometimes

I have been working on a painting off and on again for about eleven years. I know that’s pretty ridiculous but I put a good deal of investment into the material foundation, a hand built panel to which I covered with stretched canvas because I really like the combination of canvas over  a hard surface. With this method I can work it on an easel or laid down on the floor. It can tolerate sanding and scraping without much concern about damaging the canvas. And this piece had to be a slow evolution because the metallic leaf I used on most of the surface is fragile and needs a delicate hand. 

 Sometimes we block the flow of information being offered and compromise true listening.

-Rick Rubin

This was written in regard to making music but holds true with seeing something as well. Our experience of creating anything may be subject to ego and critical thinking. It may be subject to our emotions, our lack of understanding where the piece wants to go, perhaps we are into our fears. Maybe we are in a bad frame of mind and judging harshly. We see the glass as half empty instead of almost full. (According to AI overview, we should be grateful to have a glass in the first place!)

I have felt more than one piece was worth nurturing over time and so I have put paintings away sometimes for years before reevaluating and making further changes with a fresh outlook. I am a typical moody artist and I often laugh or growl at myself in the studio when I fluctuate between loving something I am working on one minute and not liking it all the next. How can the same image appear so differently? 

Recently I was looking for a tube of oil paint in my studio and found that it was nearly dried up; I had to cut the tube with a razor blade to get to the last little bit of paint: Holbein Indian Yellow. One of my most favorite colors for it’s transparency as a glaze and for its unique color which is rather like the spice, tumeric.

Two artist supply stores in my vicinity were out of it and I learned that the color has been discontinued. Looked online but no luck, so I called a store at random on the east coast and they suggested looking on Ebay. Voila! I found a single tube and ordered it. The cost with shipping will be my groceries for a few days, but I have a smile on my face. After a long relationship with this paint, decades of romance, I couldn’t quite believe the relationship was over, now we can get back together. 

As soon as it arrives, I know just what I am going to do with it, and then treasure found, I think the painting will at long last, be done.