Born Again

In my previous post, I wrote about a painting I completed on New Year’s Eve. Yesterday I finished that painting again.

The saying “a painting is never truly finished, it is merely abandoned” is apt. I wasn’t quite ready to let this one go. I am using it to inform new work in what is becoming a series. Although I would love to say that I could freeze it in time and never touch it again, the painting is there next to me while I work on the new paintings (doing it’s job of informant.) With all that wet paint in front of me I can’t help but dab at it and push it a little further.

People who don’t paint may think this is scary business. After all I was satisfied with the painting. I might have even hung it on a wall. “Aren’t you afraid of ruining it after all that work?” one might ask. But every painter knows that this is the edge that we walk on with every brush stroke and every palette knife scrape. We slowly build our pieces up from nothing, destroy it a little and build it back up countless times throughout the process. Without the experimentation and risk, there would be no joy for me as an artist. It would merely be a craft with handy 1, 2, 3 instructions. The day my work becomes formulaic is the day I move on to find another challenge. 

The new painting has a bit more texture and layers than it’s predecessor. I’ve included detail views in the text here. If you click on the images you can look at a larger view and see all the layering and effects.

Comments

[Frank Winters]

Hi Rob,

1. I love your city paintings! The colors and texture in this new version are fab....And what powerful compositions! I will be looking forward to seeing these in person next time we come out.
2. I hear what you say about the edge and going back to a work but at some point it does go up on a wall. I heard about a 2nd grade teacher who got great work out of her kids -- much better than other teachers. Someone asked her how she did it -- "I take the paintings away from them she said." Of course some kids usually will paint until the paper is totally covered and near black. But I think there is something to the story.
3. Another cautionary tale from engineering -- sometimes better is the enemy of good. Of course in your case you are making your paintings better or different so the proof is in the -- you know.
4. The doggies needed their walk -- I hope you did apologize.
5. We continue to love our Robin Troy -- it looks soooo good in our home!