I think no, I mean yes

I think no, I mean yes

…but it’s all wrong… So the song goes. This is a painting that I turned to the wall for a long time as I tried to work out what was bothering me about it. I do this frequently when I hit a wall. I put the painting aside and think about it. Sometimes solutions come to me in dreams or daydreams. Sometimes I dream of new paintings.

In this case, I decided that I didn’t like the background figure, so I painted over it. I liked that solution even worse! Today I cleaned the over-painting away to reveal the original figure.

You can see the figure in this detail even though it’s a scribbled mess. My plan now is to repaint the background figure and finish the painting by sticking to my original design.

I make design changes all the time but I try to resolve everything during the drawing stage. It’s a pain to correct already finished passages, as here. But I learned long a go to let a painting take me where it wants to go.

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