After the disaster with the glue color, I had the desire to create another circle. For this I chosed a sheet of brown-gray paper. Circles, or more precisely spirals, all over the sheet from inside to outside in white. Multiple. Very subtle against this elegant background. I could stop if it were up to aesthetics. But I want a colored sheet. So we continue, this time from outside to inside: First the corners in dark brown, corresponding with the paper. Then all colors yellow from light to dark until a strawberry pastel in the center. Another layer over it, again from the inside to the outside. More layered. More mixed.
I don’t manage to get the center right. After three attempts I take a break. The colors are too wet and too rich, so that they immediately mix into a mush.
In the evening I go over the center again: various shades of yellow. And a white center. Better. This circling takes on a different structure today. It’s no longer this “dicking around,” but it takes on a pull. Somehow the feeling remains that I have to go into a tunnel and through it. I wonder about the fact that the “tunnel” is light on the outside (i.e. at the beginning) as well as on the inside. So it is not a classical image of a path leading from dark to light. Out of nowhere, I remember a story my mother told me a long time ago. […] In the evening I lie in bed and feel the need to hold the vertex. The painting feels like the fontanel of a newborn baby. Therefore this painting is going to be called “birth”.
This morning I decide to continue working on the painting. It is going to get a glaze of pigment gold applied. Once again I hold my breath: Will I mess up the picture with it? The gradients had turned out beautifully. A look into the mixing cup shows me a muddy gray broth. … Tension. I push myself inwardly: “It’s not a work of art, it’s just a daily homework assignment. If you want to learn it, it’s all for naught – you have to try it.” The broth on the painting looks awful. I keep going. What have I got to lose? Inwardly, though, I’m glad I documented the intermediate step with the camera. How else can I compare it later?
