Old, Ugly Landscape, Reborn

Many of my plein air paintings are unsuccessful. Okay, if I'm going to be honest, they are downright ugly. Subjects that are quickly chosen because of fading light are usually among the worst. This landscape was dominated by too much green and had no decipherable design or focal point. I still remember driving around with my friend late in the afternoon searching for a public place to set up our easels and finally settling on a park because we were running out of time. I really hate to throw away canvas so I try to re-use them whenever possible. I scraped off some of the thick texture but allowed quite a bit to remain. I think it adds character and interest to the top painting, as long as I'm not trying to do a portrait. 

The dominant greens in the bottom layer of this newly created still life still affect the top layer of paint in some areas, notably the background. I decided to leave the background green at the top, modifying it with some grayed down color.

Bosc pears are my favorite fruit to eat, so I usually have some on hand. They're a nice warm, orangish hue that will provide a bit of complimentary resonance to the greens on the canvas. I painted the fruit tonally, without a direct light source, and somewhat larger than life. I had fun with the palette knife, using it to scrape and swirl and pile on the paint.

11"x14" Fantasy Pear

Back to Anyo - the Final Piece

I am pretty happy with the way the final version of Anyo, our Caeroon model, turned out. I ended up using a lot of paint on my palette knife to go over the rougher edges left by the old landscape painting beneath her. Overall I would definitely recommend the process of "rework" if you have a quality canvas or board that can take the additional layers. I don't think I would put more than one painting over another, although my friend Jim had suggested he might eventually be able to produce a 2 inch thick painting if he kept covering up his disasters. I hope (know) he was kidding but I don't see anything wrong with doing the recycling process once.

The artist has to be aware of and know how to deal with previous bits and pieces from the old painting. If you're someone who likes to paint in a thin layered style this technique will frustrate you  greatly. But if you are someone like me- who likes to experiment, scrape and sometimes even destroy the layers underneath to create some kind of new craziness you will enjoy it.

If you have varnished the old painting you will need to remove the varnish before attempting this technique. I don't usually varnish my loser paintings so that's not going to be a problem with me. If I thought one was good enough to varnish I usually put it up for sale and it's long gone.

20" x 24"

oil on canvas over board (Pintura™)

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