I have a confession: some of my favorite work starts out completely differently.
A fellow artist was cleaning out her studio. She had a stack of 12×12 panels, already textured, already marked up in ways I didn’t recognize and couldn’t explain. She didn’t want them anymore. “Pre-textured?” I said. “Sure. I’ll take those and let’s see what happens.”
I filmed the whole thing live and unedited, the way I always do. No plan. No idea what she’d been doing with these boards before they landed on my worktable. That not-knowing is half the fun. Watch it here:
Painting Over Reclaimed Panels – Two panels, two directions
One panel got covered, first a layer of Stabilo crayon marks (stars, always stars, I can’t help myself), then a wash of bright acrylic in Quinn magenta, turquoise, lime green, Naples yellow, and titanium white, mixed right on an old gift card as I worked. Whatever was underneath didn’t disappear. It just started showing through the new layer, the way old work always does.
The other panel got a spray of water, then alcohol-based hand cleaner (it breaks down old paint far better than water ever will), then a very firm 5-in-1 scraper. It did not want to give up its old life easily. I scraped, it fought me, and I let it sit longer for the next round of filming.
Nothing here is precious
That’s the part worth saying out loud: neither panel is precious. Not to me, and not anymore to the artist who handed them over. She was done with them. I’m not done with them yet, and by the time I am, they won’t look anything like what she made or what I started with today, they’ll be something else entirely, built out of both of us.
That’s the whole appeal of working this way. When nothing is precious, there’s nothing to protect. And nothing to protect means nothing to fear getting wrong. A panel that’s already been abandoned once can’t really be ruined a second time. It can only become more itself.
If you’ve got a stack of your own: a piece you set down, a sketchbook you’re embarrassed to open, a version of yourself you assumed was finished, it isn’t as finished as you think. Cover it. Scrape it back. Let it fight you a little. See what’s underneath.
What would you paint over, if you let yourself?
Come see where it goes
These panels have a lot more layers coming, and I share where they land first in the studio newsletter: studio notes, first looks at new work, no social media required. If you want in, join here!
You Shine!
Monette