Sunset Meadow (2)

"Sunset Meadow" (2)
February 3, 2025
Oil on canvas
80x50cm

This is the second version of this painting.
A friend wanted to buy it so I took it out of storage only to find out the canvas had gone all wobbly.
I had stretched the preprimed canvas myself, on a frame made with homemade stretcher bars. These homemade bars do not have the slots for the little pegs, and I did not leave enough fabric on the back. And so I could not properly restretch it...
So I went with the warm water treatment on the back of the painting. Didn't work and putting gesso on the back did not work either.

And so the only thing left to do was repaint it.

In my infinite wisdom (not) I had made the first version 80x45cm. There are no ready-made canvasses of that size, so it had to be 80x50cm. Well, 80x50cm frames don't seem to exist either. So I bought a set of stretcher bars and a roll of unprimed artist cotton and made my own frame and stretched the canvas.
I primed it the way I once learned in artschool: 2 layers of "buttermilk" gesso and 1 layer of "yoghurt" gesso. And to make sure the "liquid clear" oil medium wouldn't get soaked up I put on yet another "yoghurt" layer.

Next time I'll put a "Greek yoghurt" gesso layer on as 4th layer because the "Liquid Clear" still got soaked up pretty quickly. But it worked out anyway.

In the end I think this version is better than the first one.
And I learned some stuff along the way as well.
So this whole adventure turned out to be one big happy accident. 😍