Nut and Geb (oil) by Polly Castor

At Creative Arts Camp this fall, when I learned more about underpainting, I remembered a painting I had done mostly as therapy to get over some upsetting news. Not surprisingly under those conditions, it had come out terribly and I knew now that I could definitely save it by relegating it as a first layer of several.

I was especially thankful to know that this could be done to good effect, because the original painting had been started in good faith on a nice raised archival panel and begun in oil, and I was loathe to have those good materials go to waste.

Then when leaving camp, both my teacher and a fellow student were flying home, so they donated to me the paint off their palettes, which is no small gesture as oil paint is expensive. The best part of all this confluence is that to take advantage of this bequest of paint, I “had” to paint soon after getting home!

My first day back it was a delight to paint over that first layer of bygone frustration, and redeem this wonderful surface with a second layer in a fresh theme done in hand-me-down paint from friends. After a few more layers, I have finally realized the full image shown here. This is a highly textural work so take a good look.