Reworking a Piece

The first painting

The reworked painting

Rythms of Light-6x8

As you can see ive made a huge change on the painting above and i thought i'd use it as a lesson on todays post about making changes.

the first thing to realize about making a change whether it be a huge change or just a small one is that its not that hard to do and its not the end of the world. painting is a hard task and to think that everything you paint is right the first time is self deception. they say there are over 2000 decisions made on the average painting and you cant expect to get every one of those decisions right.

so what do you do if youre finished with the painting and you dont like something about it? if its dry you sand down the area (if you paint thickly) and apply a really really thin wash of gessoe over it, redraw and then repaint. if its wet, blot it with a paper towel to get as much of the paint off the area as possible and then take a painting knife and scrape off what you can. then you take a brush with some paint thinner on it and go over the area using a paper towel and thinner (and q-tips if its a really small area) and get the rest of the paint off down to the surface of the board or canvas. then redraw and repaint.

i know this might seem kind of elementary but you'd be surprised at the new painters who are scared to death to make a change on a canvas and they just need to know that its not that big of a deal.

on mine above i wanted to get rid of the waitress (she was too prominent up in the foreground) and got rid of the guys in front of the poles on the left. this makes the scene more about the bar/restaurant interior. its the Land Ho, a very popular Orleans, Mass. eatery.