You Can Improve Your Paintings

The View
Acrylic on Canvas Panel
20 x 16 in/50.8 x 40.6 cm
Copyright Byrne Smith 2018

Whether you refer to it as a re-work, a re-new, a do-over, an update, or simply a fix, it's never too late (or too soon) to go back and look at your paintings with a fresh eye. You may be surprised at what you see, or can now see, after the passage of time.

You may be surprised at how your artistic eye now perceives your work after your eye, your brain, and your hand have continued to gain experience since you first completed it.

I'm sure some painters can't bear the thought of going back and making even the slightest change to any of "their work." Really? The work is not trapped in amber in whatever year it was done.

In a recent post I mentioned how I had gone through my old paintings that were taking up too much space. I said it was entirely permissible to throw some of them away, which I did. But I also saw several I thought could be worked on with my more experienced eye, brain, and hand.

Today's image was painted in 2015. I added chroma in the upper sky and the foreground to add more contrast to the composition. I added some elements, such as the blue flowers in the foreground, and improved some lost-and-found edges in others. I re-titled it, too.

Consider carefully how to go about making changes and remember rules, such as not painting acrylic over oil, still apply.

 If it can be improved, do it!