05 November, 2012

Botched paintings and studies

There is an attrition rate in painting.....for me, about 1 in three. That's pretty high, but not as bad as it once was!!
For every canvas I paint I LOVE one, I am dissatisfied with one and undecided with one. The successes speak for themselves, but what to do with the others? Throwing them away is a waste and I want to learn from the mistakes, but I don't want to be faced with them all the time.
Well, I now place them upside down on the easel and paint over them! I was previously unable to tear my eyes from the original design but the upside down trick works well and I tend to paint looser and faster( to cover the mess!) and usually end up with a painting I am delighted with.

If the original painting is compositionally sound etc, just boring, I go back and work on it with some reference in mind so that it becomes a tutorial of sorts. It is not precious and intimidating like a blank canvas, yet it has potential.

This was OK, but boring.






So I reworked the foreground and it looks better. I am always happy to add the creeks!



I won't paint over any more studies, but I will use them to paint larger, studio paintings. The bad paintings will continue to be recycled.....the texture created by the dried paint alone is magic.

I have a new giveaway on my Facebook page .....have a lookYou can always gift if you are the winner...a good  Xmas present!!

November already.........wow.

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