Wipe

13 November 2008 in art technique, oil painting by David | No comments

So tonight I’m working on my “White Shirt” painting. I spend a good hour on the most detailed part of the piece—the hangar hook and its shadow. I do a really nice job, with small brushes, getting each curve and the flash of metal just right. Detailed, but not too fussy. Then I step back.

I’ve made an error. The hook is too small. It looks almost right, but not quite.

I sit for a minute, then take a rag dipped in turps and wipe it off the painting. You need to be willing to do that sometimes, just as an author needs to be able to delete a wondrous chapter that just doesn’t work with the rest of the novel. If it’s not right, it has to go, no matter how much you like it.

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