This is a new painting, sized at 24″ by 24″ on canvas, that I finished last night. It has a wonderful warmth in the studio and really nice depth into the picture plane. There is a real feeling of completeness in this piece and I get a real sense of satisfaction when I look at this. I have talked about a sense of rightness in the past, about an instinctual feeling of whether something works or not, and this piece has this feeling for me. It’s one of those pieces that, if it were not to find another home, I would gladly keep for myself, which is something I don’t say very often.
I did something with this piece that I have never done in the past. I painted over an existing piece, meaning that the image shown here on the right, no longer exists. It was a piece I created last year and had planned to show at one of my fall exhibits. It seemed to work, had a nice surface and good color. But as it sat in the studio it just seemed lifeless. It lacked a certain brilliance, appeared flat up close. It was missing that sense of rightness. It actually appears better on the screen or printed page, unlike much of my work.
So one piece is no longer and another lives on in its place. Even though it’s a mere image, a simple composition at that, there is a slight sense of loss, as though a little bit of possibility has been erased. This would actually bother me if the new painting didn’t far surpass for me the first. And it does and I am pleased to look upon the new work but still have a feeling of the work beneath.
Redtree Times 