Distressed

Monday, November 7, 2022

Last night, I was supposed to go the bank. I didn’t. That’ was not wise. Like I’ve said before, I self sabotage. Which means that what was supposed to process, didn’t. Now, I’m spending my day trying to figure out what I should do next.

I had something else in mind, completely, when I started this. I just started laying down painters tape with no real plan. Then is started to come together. I filled the empty space with modeling paste. I was thinking of a paint crackle. However, my patience wasn’t having it. I didn’t wait for the paste to dry completely, instead using my heat gun. Then I didn’t wait for the color shifting black/gold to dry, again, used a heat gun. Then I didn’t wait for the crackling medium to dry, even though it explicitly says on the bottle to wait AN HOUR between layers. Also used the heat gun. So, why was I surprised that when I put the brushed gold on, it didn’t crackle? Then I had to do some actual “pay the bills” work.

In the evening, after we returned from my daughter’s softball lesson, it was almost like the gold was rubber cement. I started peeling. Partly because I didn’t like how it looked, and partly because I love peeling rubber cement and really couldn’t help myself. Of course, it didn’t come off clean. After looking at it, I decided that I actually liked my mistake. I brushed a bit more gold on and removed the tape. The white underneath was just way to stark in contrast. I don’t know what made me grab the taupe, but I did. It was just too flat, so I went back over it and added the brown shading on the edges, then lined the shapes with a dark chocolate brown. It almost give the optical illusion of planks of board sitting on the canvas.

I would say this is a happy accident. Even if it looks as distressed as I feel.