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Keep it or bin it!
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Message
Posted
From the outset of my foray into painting ,I have retained all of my work ( I use that term loosely!). The failed attempts, I have just put aside and put down to experience. This morning, I rescued a watercolour painting which still didn't look right but, rather that bin it, I painted over it in acrylics leaving some of the original. It's an improvement but I'm still in a steep learning curve. So, having perhaps bored you with that, I'm interested in others thoughts and practices.
Posted
Stop it Fiona you are producing artwork, you might not be totally happy with it but nonetheless it’s artwork. I have paintings going back years thst I disliked a lot , occasionally I look at them and see some decent bit in there . I don’t try to update them as it’s not that easy with watercolours but they inspire me to do it again, sometimes I used a technique I haven’t used for ages because that’s the bit I liked . It’s also a good reminder of how your work has changed and how you have developed different styles, skills , techniques etc.
Posted
I never throw out paintings that haven’t worked. Often I go back to them much later and find they perhaps aren’t as bad as I thought and sometimes revive them by adding collage, cropping them or gessoing over some areas and repainting. If it’s a watercolour, you can cut out interesting bits to use for collage on another painting. Watercolour paper is expensive, so if the painting is a complete failure I gesso over the whole thing and start again. I think my favourite solution, though, for a failed painting is adding collage, it’s fun to do and can completely transform something you previously disliked. I also have a set of Neocolour II water soluble wax pastels, they are brilliant for reworking areas of watercolour.
Edited
by Jenny Harris
Posted
I've kept a lot of my stuff - not all of it, or I wouldn't be able to move for paintings, but some of it dating back to 1970. I don't keep it because it's any good, but because it's a good indication of where I've progressed, AND where I've stood still; I remember some old paintings and wish I still had them - I don't know what on earth I did with them.... Anyway, ignore that trip down memory lane. On the whole, I don't throw things out unless I've quite obviously worked them to death or they're just embarrassingly bad: though when I say "embarrasing", actually you shouldn't be embarrassed by your work - it was all part of the learning process, and perhaps the very worst examples can teach you the most (like "limit that palette, for Heaven's sake!").
Posted
I don’t throw things out either… at the end of the day it can be a ‘blank’ canvas again with new ideas, either as it is with the existing painting as a starter, or starting again with a few coats of gesso. I might throw it out if the canvas itself was cheap (with stretch and box canvas) and doesn’t hang well. Or I’ll paint something on it that will be cut out and mounted in a frame.
Posted
I work mainly in sketch books and a lot of my stuff I've just given away. There are a couple of boxes with sketch books under a bed upstairs gathering dust (not literally as my wife is a clean and tidy person) Quite a few district nurses, neighbours and friends have unframed work of mine, my granddaughter also has a couple of sketch books. I've never sold my work, so what else would I do with it? It's all been good practise and when anything happens to me it may well just be re-cycling fodder. Some already has been. We have four small framed sketches my wife likes hung in the house. Despite all, I still paint/draw most days as it's a habit hard to break.
Posted
What an interesting thread. I enjoy reading what others do with their paintings. Fiona, your painting above could certainly be reworked. Did you scrape paint off. That can create amazing effects and I think yours could be the basis for another painting.
I give mine away to people (and I just sold my first painting) and either hang the rest in the house (and garage, although I see one or two starting to get mouldy in there) or store them if I'm not happy with them. I often paint over the ones I think can't be saved, but I sometimes regret it later. I did an acrylic painting a couple of years ago I didn't like and painted over it. But I took a photo of it first. Later, looking at the photo, I realised it was actually quite good (by my standards) and I painstakingly recreated it with oil pastels. My computer crashed later on and I lost the photo too, so all I have now is the pastel recreation. The crash wiped out a few more photos of paintings I've given away or painted over and I've nothing now except the memories.
I have a habit, maybe a bad one, of tweaking paintings and drawings I've already finished, including ones I've posted on the gallery here. All I can see is the faults in my work and eventually it gets unbearable and I have to do something about it!
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