#30×30, 2025, Day 14: Like a Phoenix From the Ashes

Today was an epic battle! It took forever to finish a small 10×10″ sketch – and there were multiple points where I though the day would end in disaster.

I think it’s normal for me – around the midpoint of the thirty day marathon I’ve done some warming up, things are starting to flow, and then I think; I should do a really good one!

That’s always a huge mistake :)

Putting pressure on yourself to do a good one? In the middle of a public event? On a deadline?

Huge mistake!

Whenever you’re afraid you’re going to ruin a painting, you’re in big trouble.

So yes; here’s the piece at the first moment of crisis. The halfway point. This is the finished underpainting in watercolor.

I had been going very carefully – much too carefully – making little wet areas and charging them in with color. This often happens with detailed subjects. I get lost in the details – treating them all with the same importance.

When I put in the sky I had thought I was done!

But then you step back and realize – wow. This whole thing is FAR too light! There’s nowhere near enough contrast!

I really dislike going over a wash twice. The goal is to get the color right the first time. It’s very easy to just muddy what you have if you go over again. And – there’s no way you can cut around a complex shape twice. You’ll end up with a messy complicated silhouette if you try to do it twice.

I felt stuck!

That sky was NOT dark enough. And why did I leave the roof white? It’s not daytime with the noontime sun shining down!

I’ve really messed this up!

So – I had an ice cream. Laid about the studio for a while. Fussed about.

And finally decided; I have to do something right?

So I did cut in AGAIN, against my better judgement.

And then, in a cascading series of problems – as soon as I had a darker sky, it was clear that the darks in the temple were far too pale – including that white rooftop I had left for no good reason – so maybe (in desperation) it was time to bring out the gouache!

Oh My God!

Here it is with some very heavy handed retouching in gouache.

Now I’m REALLY thinking I ruined it!

I’ve been having such great luck with painting-over in gouache. It’s supposed to be a simple way to fix anything! How did this one get so overworked?

Well – because of course, trying to paint this fantastically detailed Chinese temple is completely different from slashing out a sky on a 4″ abstract landscape. Truth is – nothing I’ve done for first two weeks has been anywhere near this difficult.

So; I fussed about some more, seriously considered tearing it up – which of course broke the spell.

Once you decide you hate it – you can do anything :)

So I laid in a dark orange/sepia wash over the whole thing – soaking the entire image with wet paint. I had the board tilted practically vertical – you can see color running down the image in the middle there.

Miraculously – this melted all the overworked gouache. It reduced all of the contrast, neutralized all the color, and served to unify all the distraction in the background.

In the moment, I wasn’t sure if I’d ruined it for good, so went and ate some chocolate chip cookies, then came back and realized – – all I had to do was re-state the lanterns and pillars with white, and lo’ and behold – it suddenly works.

That’s the kind of retouch that works. Minimal touches! Not a complete paint-over :)

So – watercolor midpoint vs gouache-wash over top.

That’s how you spend an entire afternoon on a 10″ painting, almost give up three times, eat lot of junk food, and in the end, like a Phoenix from the ashes – you can only save a painting by deciding to burn it to the ground :)

~m