Friday 16 January 2015

Day 16 - Perseverence

9"x9" on Canvas
I started today's painting a while ago and didn't like it very much, so I put it aside. 

A week or so later, I looked at it again and added some scrim and painted a little over it, but found the heavier scrim really hard to work with, so again, I put it aside. 

A couple of days ago, I picked it up again and knocked back the heavy scrim with some modeling paste, but it was still hard to work with, so I put it aside.

Once again, I put it back on the easel and applied some tissue over the heavy scrim area and found, at last, that  I could paint on it without that area dominating the whole painting. 

It is worth letting a piece rest for a day or two (or longer) and not giving up on it, quite often, it is salvageable.  After all, "A painting is a collection of a series of corrections" as Helen van Wyk once said.

9 comments:

Jennifer Rose said...

love all the textures :) reminds me of a cold day.

I think I left a drawing alone for almost a year once lol and when I went back to it, I wondered what I thought was wrong with it :p

Rolina said...

Thanks Jennifer! Often they seem to improve all by themselves with a little time out, LOL!

AprilRimpo said...

Nice to know I am not the only one who had to put some of mine aside and go back a few times. Your result was worth the extra work. I love the Helen van Wyk quote. That might have to be added to the bottom of my blog with the other artist quotes.

http://cagleyart.blogspot.com/ said...

Rolina,
Just like people, I believe that paintings sometimes need a bit of time to decide who they want to become...
This is simply exquisite!!!

Rolina said...

Thanks April, it is a good quote, isn't it and really, very true!

Thanks too, Connie, I think you could be right, time (and a ponder) is often what is needed.

Kathy Elliott Art said...

I agree with all the comments! I have done this so many times. More often than I hate to admit I have painted over something only to look back much later and realize I should have left it alone, because I had ruined something that I now thought was quite nice before! It's a fine line sometimes! I love the quote! The painting is lovely.

martine paquet said...

Persévérance est le mot-clé du peintre;-)
Quand on regarde une peinture délaissée avec un oeil reposé, bien souvent on lui trouve un charme nouveau et on a tout plein d'idées pour l'améliorer.
J'aime beaucoup cette toile avec ses textures et motifs !

Sandy Sandy Art said...

Love this piece and also love the quote;"A painting is a collection of a series of corrections". I generally think of painting as problem solving and boy have I had a lot of them to solve with painting abstracts lately. Your process and work is truly inspirational!

Rolina said...


Merci Martine, je suis d'accord!