A new medium of work for Shelley; comparable to the Frescos but at a smaller scale, still having the elements of building up and scraping away.

Palimpsest:

A palimpsest is a name for a very old manuscript on which the original writing has been effaced for later writing, but of which traces of the original remain. Something altered, but still bearing traces of its original form.
The description resonates with me as I recall my process for many pieces. Between layers, I often scrape and reveal, and then only cover them partially, as when I dry-brush a colour over a tiny oil painting. This often shows many different colours visible in the final painting.
There are days, weeks sometimes when I’ve spent hours working on something, only to have resolved nothing, to have accomplished nothing, except using up materials. And yet sometimes as I near the end of a piece, one of those layers that accomplished nothing at the time, is revealed and found to be just the right colour that was needed when the surface was scraped away.