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July 15, 2004
Once is not enough
I schlapp on the under-paint, the lights and darks describing the form, then apply the first colours. It looks good. It's tempting to leave it like that, dynamic, vital, vigorous even. But it’s flat, it has no life. The brush strokes may be alive but the figure isn’t.
So I do it again, all over again, looking again, looking harder, seeing more.
[Though I paint wet-on-wet while painting, I wait for the paint to dry before each go, as I need to build up depth and layers too.]
The figure comes alive, but the brush strokes die.
So I do it again, looking again, finding the corners and the edges of the form where no corners or edges exist, and apply the paint to something I can’t see but only feel.
Then, and only then, are both the figure and the brush strokes alive, only then does the painting work for me.
Posted by john at July 15, 2004 09:18 PM
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