It’s probably the artist and other like-minded artists who get excited about the possibilities held in the beginning of a painting. Other people probably see little more than something not nearly finished. In my particular process, the first, foundational layers of a painting are exciting because between these and the final layer is a lot of inevitable struggle and disappointment—struggle to wrestle the thing toward its finish and disappointment in all the clumsiness and misstep along the way, which I can never seem to avoid no matter how “good” these first layers are.
After an image has been scaled, from its original source, to the canvas, the structure is marked out by a linear drawing and a wash of color is added to emphasize a major division. I admit: nothing heroic will result from such a small canvas and such an incidental image . . . but this is what my vocation requires of me, and at this stage I am happy to start work!