A Sea of Grass, a Pool of Tears

One day last February I was asked to come to Levelland, about 30 miles away, and give a presentation on Seated Yoga to a ladies club. (It was a delightful group, btw). It's a quiet, calming drive, a straight line through the plains without much variation in topography and lots of open sky. On this day the sky was overcast, the day was chilly, and as I approached the town I saw a farm road off to my right, and along its edges, waves of dried, bleached grasses and winter-dead shrubs. I was ahead of schedule so I took a detour a few feet down the road and got out of my car with my cell phone to take an atmospheric shot, as well as some close up shots of the grasses for inspiration. I worked a little Instagram hocus pocus and came out with these two images.

This isn't the first time I have been captivated with the texture of prairie grasses. A few years ago I painstakingly stitched this image from a photo I had taken on another country road near Wolforrth.

Later, while going through my fox phase I did this painting, which became more about the surroundings than the little sleeping fox.

 So I started out by doing a small painting of the Levelland grasses.

Then I started painting grasses just out of my imagination, in different colour palettes.

It's tricky catching the colour and depth on my cell phone. My daughter will take professional photos later.

Finally I prepped a larger canvas and went back to my original photo for inspiration.

It was met with great enthusiasm on social media. In fact I sold it even before I had added the final coat of varnish.

Which is when the unthinkable happened.
I was indeed adding that final coat of varnish, after having done three layers of glazing to create a warm, radiant effect. This was the same varnish I had used on the other paintings, and many paintings before but.....maybe it was the damp weather and the other glazes hadn't set, but before my eyes, the varnish and the glazes began to frost over then turn into a gelatinous mess. The more I tried to smooth it out the worse it got. I grabbed the painting, ran to the bathroom and began hosing it down in the bath tub, rubbing with a washcloth to get the varnish off before it set. Not only did the varnish and glazes come off but so did flakes of paint from sky and field. It suddenly looked like a 100 year old painting that had been left in the sun. I just stood there paralyzed. Now what?
Well, after the painting dried I took it back into the studio and for three hours tried to salvage it. I had to sand down and completely repaint the sky, painting right over the telephone poles and wires, then painting them back in. I then had to restore the fields, bring the faded colours back, and repaint grasses one by one. It was at least better than sitting in a puddle of tears.
So here is the second version of the painting over the first version. The sky is a bit different as is the left part of the field. Same scene, maybe as it looked ten minutes later, with the clouds shifting and the wind blowing a different direction. I hope I saved it. I hope my blood pressure is back to normal. I don't want to ever do that again so thus far I have re-glazed the surface three times but not added varnish. I am terrified of varnish.