Sometimes the struggle is a gift because when it is extreme enough it is clear that something is wrong. If the issue is composition no amount of applying technique can fix a bad composition. Hallelujah – get out the gesso and start again.
Then there are times when you have a niggle that something isn’t working but you can’t quite put your finger on what is bothering you. Whether I love a painting or have a niggle, I love to have the time to hang a painting in my foyer so that I get to walk past it several times a day for a few weeks.
During this time I do not analyze and critique what I have done, I simply let the visual information percolate as the piece comes in and out of my awareness. At some point I am ready to make a decision and the painting either gets a finish coat of varnish, a tweak or gets recycled with a coat of gesso.
I thank my unconscious for the quiet consulting.
Paintings aren’t sacred. They are done when they are done. Or not. Even two years later I might have an epiphany and take something off the wall for a fresh look. That’s just what happened with the painting in the image above. Think of it as a remix.