August 13, 2009

Some of my stuff seems to be snake bit from the beginning. All I wanted for this one was a smooth gray background, minimal figuration, and a varnish. The first thing that went wrong was the gray field: It was streaked and not one color, even after three coats. Then it was the figuration, so I ripped it off with pliers and rather liked the remains, thinking I'd keep the design. I needed to bring the gray up to the new edge of the figuration, which now did not match the gray of the background. That meant a new gray background. I'd forgotten the specific formula for that gray, so the background was becoming a different (wrong) color.

Finally it seemed to be finished, and I applied picture varnish to the whole thing, feeling that I'd put infinitely more effort into this "simple" piece than I ever dreamed necessary--only to find that it had dried milky and full of tiny bubbles like acne. Worse than that, the whole gray background was again multicolored and smeared. I threw that bottle of varnish in the trash.

I sanded the acne and mixed a new batch of gray and began the process all over again. It looks fine. All that's needed is the final application of picture varnish. Should I or shouldn't I?

Am I willing to screw this up for the hope of a final coat? There's no reason it should go wrong--except that everything else connected to this piece has--and I'm a great believer in the chance-taking facet of artmaking. Besides. Life's a gamble.

PW