Finalised my filing, and painted my frames today. I started by filling the little gaps with more gesso, then sanding. This worked rather well, better than I expected. Then, paint. Here are the results so far:
Unlike my tests, the grain was rather raised with these. It does look rather nice, actually, but was unexpected because it didn't happen before. Perhaps more vigorous sanding would stop this because to some extent it is 'faux grain' due to brush marks in the deep gesso. My mix may have been more paint-rich than my more watery test paints. A layer of sealer (I think a polyurethane 'yacht' varnish would be a good choice) might help. I could paint some areas and not others to control the grain effect.
The painting went ok, and these frames do look better, and with more ease, than the others which took me days of effort. I will add gold leaf to the inside edges.
So I'm making a flat pad to put and cut the gold on. Previously I've used a sponge with cloth lightly rested on, but the sponge is too soft and cutting is difficult.
Doing this made me think of 'skill' and 'talent'. I was sanding quickly, but well, and thinking about craft and skill. I'm always slightly offended when people say that I am 'talented', as though I possess some natural ability vs. years of hard work and endless practice and learning and trying every aspect of something. I don't believe in talent, but then what is a skill?
It made me think how some well-practiced skills and crafts might appear divine to the eyes of people from the pre-machine age. Now we can see machines making beautiful things. Would we call their acts skill? If so then skill is simply a list of rules, and perhaps programming, the first thing I learned, is a universal skill indeed. Programming teaches us that anything is possible by the application of logical rules, step-by-step, done without emotion. Any skill is this, so part of mastering a skill, such as oil painting, such as composing music, or playing the piano or guitar, is a matter of knowing these rules, and if needed, making them.
With each step of my framing job, just as with each step of every painting, I write up what I've done and try to break things into a list of rules like this. So, perhaps there is no skill, other than the skill of this knowledge; the skill to make rules and obey them like a machine would. One day, after years of doing this, someone might consider your actions a talent, but we will know that it would be wrong to call a computer 'talented' for its execution of a good chess program.
After gilding, and framing, my outstanding jobs are to record my 90s OctaMED music, which would free me up to sell the SY-85, then finish the paintings in progress (will I have time to paint more? I would love that), finalise the Nantwich Museum exhibition plans, and photograph the completed works with my new photo-rig.
The Macc Art Lounge is open again and has a token few of my paintings, kindly exhibited, curated, and vended by Ché. I don't have time, or transport confidence, for now, to man the shop and fully take part in activities there. At the moment it is the only outlet for my paintings. I may have a London exhibition opportunity soon, but art opportunities are limited to that and any competitions I enter from today. Things are just waking up from the needle-prick of Covid's enchanted sleep.
