After a few rounds, the board starts to look like it’s been through something. Not in a dramatic way. More like a kitchen table that’s been repainted twice and still has the old dents.

Five layers in, it begins to feel like a real object. The paint builds weight. The edges soften. The surface holds onto the history of your hand.

I leaned the panel against the wall for a day. From ten feet away it looked finished. Green, mostly. A simple shape. Up close it was crowded.

Orange, blue, white, a yellow-brown that went on with a palette knife because I couldn’t find a clean brush. Then green. Each layer with a different mood. Different day. Different light. Tuesday arguing with Friday.

The green was meant to be the calm layer. It went on in broad strokes, trying to cover what it could. It covered the orange. It covered the blue. It evened out the places where I’d sanded too far and opened the wood.

Then the panel dried and the old things came back.

The drip ridge was still there under the green, quiet but present. The orange pushed through near the lower left where the paint was thinner, the way a stain returns after you think you’ve cleaned it. The house primer in the middle held the green differently than the gesso on the edges. Same color. Different surface. You could see the boundary if you tilted it under a lamp.

There’s a point where sanding stops feeling like work and starts feeling like weather. Just abrasion. Just time.

I added a small shape in the upper right. A bird, or something that wanted to be a bird. The brush caught on a ridge from an earlier white layer and the wing came out jagged. I left it. It looked like it was flying through rough air.

I stopped on a Thursday. The light went flat in the afternoon. The sanding dust stopped feeling interesting and started feeling like dust. My back was tired from leaning over the bench.

Signing took a pen, not a brush. Ink on top of paint. The pen tip snagged on a bump and the letters tilted. My name looked like it had been written in a moving vehicle. I didn’t sign the back. I never do.

I lifted the board and felt the weight again. Not heavy. Just not nothing. Layers weigh something even after they dry.

I tilted it under the kitchen lamp one more time. The green looked steady until the light hit the ridge. Then you could see the whole argument in the surface. The buried orange. The blue in the low spots. The raw wood in the corner where I’d gotten carried away with sandpaper.

The last layer is the one you stop on.

The board leaned against the wall. From across the room it looked done.