#41: Trusting the Experiments

Behind every painting, there’s a lot the viewer never sees. The final piece might look effortless when it’s hanging on a wall, but the truth is often the opposite: it’s built on countless small trials, strange tests, and sometimes even failures.

That’s the stage I’m in right now.

Inventing a Process

The moiré portrait project I’ve been developing has already taken me down plenty of unexpected paths — acetate overlays, Photoshop mock-ups, inkjet prints, shifting patterns. But in recent weeks I’ve been thinking harder about what it will actually take to get this project properly off the ground.

It’s not just about having the idea. It’s about figuring out whether the idea can live in paint.

Today, that meant buying a new Perspex sheet — not for the artwork itself, but as a sacrificial surface. My plan is to test lots of paints and matt varnishes directly on it, just to see how they behave. Will the oils take to it? Will the surface hold the paint, or reject it? Will the varnish enhance or destroy the optical effects I’m chasing?

There isn’t a handbook for this. No tutorial. I have to invent the process as I go.

The Work You Don’t See

This kind of testing doesn’t always look glamorous. It’s not a finished canvas or a bold new portrait. It’s streaks of colour, uneven layers, failed coats of varnish, and notes scribbled on the side about what worked and what didn’t.

But it’s necessary. If I skip this part, I risk building an entire project on unstable ground. These experiments are the invisible foundations of the paintings I want to make.

And that’s the thing about experimentation: sometimes you have to go out of your way to test techniques you’ve never seen before. Sometimes you even have to “waste” materials just to learn what’s possible. But it isn’t waste at all — it’s investment.

Trusting the Mess

I’ve come to believe this kind of background work is essential to art. It’s rarely talked about, and it often goes unnoticed, but it’s where innovation happens.

Right now, I don’t have the answers. I don’t know if the paints will behave on Perspex, or how the varnishes will affect the layered illusions I’m building. But that’s the point: the only way to find out is to try.

So today I’m trusting the experiments — letting the tests be messy, open-ended, and unresolved. Because without this stage, there will be no painting.

And if it all works? That sacrificial Perspex sheet will have been the most important step I could take.

.M.

Be real.

Make art.

If you’d like to learn more about my creative process or see my latest work, feel free to reach out or check out the rest of my website.