My impatience

 I'm so impatient. I've left the painting outside for longer than I expected to, and unfortunately there has been little change in it's appearance. You may be able to see that the ink has been bleached significantly, and there is also some dirt on the surface from when it rained. Unfortunately there isn't much more development than that, and I certainly want more.

 Over the past few days I have debated taking matters into my own hands and using various methods to weather the canvas myself. Hopefully if I try this natural approach again when we're further into winter there will be better, and faster results. However, doing that feels kind of deceptive to me, and feels like I'm compromising my original concept. I feel like I need to put up with feeling frustrated and just let this happen naturally.

At least I have other work to do in the meantime. Today I started working on the first of the two portraits I've recently had commissioned. They are both of children, which is something new for me, so I'm doing a lot of preparatory sketches. These pieces also will not include text or embroidery, just a straightforward portrait, so it'll be a change. That's the plan for today, and hopefully I can start painting the figure in the next few days.

Rain

I was thinking earlier that I've left the painting outside for another week, with no extreme weather and no results whatsoever. I was getting frustrated, and suddenly it started raining!
It's going quite hard, and for the past week the canvas has been placed flat on the ground rather than propped against the wall, so that rain collects rather than drains off, and sunlight should shine directly on the surface.
This must be the first time I've ever hoped for rain and bad weather, and now I'm very pleased. Really looking forward to seeing the results of this, and hopefully it'll be raining all night!

Update/Evaluation

As promised, I can now say what I've been doing with the piece I'm currently working on!

I decided to leave it outside for a week to become weathered and affected by the elements. For example, being battered by wind, bleached by strong sunlight, or saturated by rain. My rationale was that the majority of people are born perfect, with no scars or bruises, physically and mentally. As you go through life your experiences affect you and you end up with all manner of scars and bruises. When I paint, I strive to create something perfect, so allowing it to become weathered and damaged over a period of time was an analogy to going through life and being affected by your experiences.

I intended to leave it for a week, and then use embroidery as normal, possibly as a means of repair. Unfortunately, there has been no extreme weather at all during the past week, so doing this seems to have had no effect on the painting. One day I came home to find it had been knocked over and slightly soaked during an afternoon of wind and rain, but this didn't really alter the piece permanently. I think this is one of the only times I've ever wished for bad weather.
Because of this, I'm going to leave the work out for longer. Unfortunately I cannot say how long I will need to do this for as I'm entirely dependent on the weather. I think I just need to be patient and hope that there's a storm soon.
In the meantime I've got a few other things to work on, including two new commissions. Hopefully I'll see some results with this piece soon. Today I will also be sending off my residency application to Titanik gallery in Turku!