If I keep painting over failed paintings I might never have to buy another support again. I have a mountain of bad paintings. Someone told me once that many bad paintings is a very positive thing! Keep going despite bad painting and eventually, because of sheer tenacity and volume, more and more the bad paintings get replaced with better ones. The old painting was a plein air painting from last year where tried to capture the light filtering through a bunch of trees. Ugh! Didn't even come close to working! So, I placed the old painting upside down on my easel and I painted these two roses, with Richard Schmid in mind. Schmid is known for his crisp brushwork that is combined with washy looking strokes that serve as the background. I certainly did not accomplish what the master Schmid does....but it helped me to keep thinking about how he puts down paint cleanly and deliberately!Oil on 5 x 7 gessoed board
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22 comments:
I'm not sure you are allowed to have this much fun...
Love your roses. The brushwork is exciting and inspiring. -Don
Ok, I've studied the sequence, and still can't figure out how you had the vision to get from forest to roses without gesso. this is wonderful and alive. brilliant!
Celeste, I think these roses are beautiful. There looks like a ton of beautiful texture in this piece; the roses stand out so beautifully. I loved seeing Richard's work too so thank you for including a link. I think you deftly captured his style in this piece. Just a fabulous painting and great choices of colors!
welll painting over old ones or not , you can give life to it .
wonderful expression on this painting .
iloved the rose .
These roses are light, loose, and
have a fregrance too!
Sheer tenacidy is modivation unstopable.
Two fairly decent roses are the result of reaching inside yourself
for the beauty within.
This is a lovely painting.
I see you have your blue back. Beautiful!! Amazing how you "see".
I like the result.
I have to admit, I love the mid-stage, as if the trees were hallucinating the roses.
It's interesting to me (a writer) that you could make a brand new painting over an old one. Not a blank canvass. When I try to imagine that, I think of trying to write a new essay in the margins of an old one... or something like that. It would be so hard to focus. But you didn't even mention that as an issue.
Brains... they're all do different in how they work!
And I like the new finished work.
Christine
well done Celeste! those roses definately have good colour and to follow in Schmid's footsteps can only be good. r.
Thank you Don, Liz, Autumn, Caio,Bill, PAMO, T_art, Susan, Rahina...& Christine. Christine, I learned awhile ago that I don't have a problem painting over old paintings. In fact the painting beneath often seems to help so that I can see color relationships. I had seen one of my workshop teachers paint over a previous painting and when I tried it for myself I was surprised how the painting below does not confuse me. I guess when one starts painting the new image the old one really no longer demands the painter's attention. Here is a link to some of my previous "paint overs"
http://celestebergin.blogspot.com/search?q=paint+over+old
Celeste, bravo to you for getting some beautiful roses out of a (according to you) failed forest painting.
Well done!
I haven't tried this but it looks like fun; an old painting is half-way to the layered look--makes sense to me. And it's beautiful.
Yes! It's a whole lot like collaborating with yourself. A beautiful piece here celeste. G.
Ah, Nice foder for future art historians with x-ray machines.
The roses are great!
Your attitude about painting over bad paintings is exactly mine! It gives a whole new perspective from which to start the next work. I call them "rescue" paintings.
Very Schmidish! If being a good artist involves many bad paintings, by golly I'm fabulous! So I should let go of my compulsion to save every bad painting I ever did and just start painting over them. Like you! Thanks!
Great idea painting over all bad paintings of the past. I've done it before, but not without a lot of hassle; scraping, gessoing, etc., etc. Love how you went from bad forest to beautiful roses.
Wow... awesome transformation... I love and appreciate you posting your process!
this was fun to watch the change. plus it is a great little painting.
An amazing and effective transformation!
Celeste I am so glad to have stumbled onto your blog and I thank you so much for the encouragement and kind comments on my blog over the past few days. I love your work and your sense of exploration and adventure with different styles of painting and working. The roses are absolutely wonderful and this post is especially inspiring. Thank you!
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