[Karin Wells]

Here is another view on this topic from "Robert Genn's Twice Weekly Letter; Insight and inspiration for your artistic career." You can suscribe to this at: http://www.painterskeys.com The following is quoted with Robert's permission.

February 25, 2003

Dear Karin,

Recently I've had my knuckles thoroughly rapped for recommending one of my favorite creative acts--burning bothersome paintings. Environmentalists have pointed out that it's not only anti-social, in some places it's illegal. Chastened, I'm now turning your attention to the fine art of hanging onto your dogs. And what to do with them.

"Hope," said Alexander Pope, "springs eternal in the human breast." Hope that you will eventually be able to breathe new life into some of your old failures. Truth is, given the confluence of desire and understanding, you can--with many of them. Half-finished or unresolved paintings, after being put aside for a while, can sometimes be figured out and fixed. You must often wait until the "knowledge" comes to you. If you're growing fast, this might be only a couple of weeks. Some of us must wait for decades. Here are a few suggestions, many of which will not apply to watercolourists, whose work, due to the nature of the medium, can often be permanently beyond redemption.

Glazing. More things are wrought by glazing than this world dreams of. In opaque-media a toning glaze almost always gives an opportunity to reorganize values and improve compositions. Often, the main thing that is needed is a "mother-colour" that pulls the painting together. Overworked and unfocused works can be revitalized and re-evaluated. Centers of interest, comings to light, colour surprises can then be found and cut in. For starters, I recommend a thin wash of Carbon black, Pthalo blue or Quinacridone gold. Go ahead; amaze yourself.

Take out. Very often it's what you take out that makes a work stronger. Simpler compositions generally win the show. Very often we tend to keep an element in because of the effort of putting it there in the first place. If it can be fingered as a distraction--chuck it.

Put in. I call it PMII (Put more into it). This doesn't mean cluttering it with another element--a new figure in the foreground or more birds in the sky. It means looking for the essential drama that already exists in the work, and building on it. Make storms stormier. Let lights shine brighter. Let flames burn higher. (Oops)

Best regards,

Robert Glenn

PS: "Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." (Thomas Edison)

"Every path you take educates you and leads you to the next." (Martha Sturdy)

"There, I've failed again!" (Vincent van Gogh)

Esoterica: Artists are sometimes guilty of underplaying intellectualization and practical thinking. Lists that I use in my dog-resurrections include queries about pattern, design, grays, mid-tones, clutter, focus, style-force and condition. I accept the idea that problem-solving is one of the most rewarding aspects. One must patiently comb one's dogs with thoughts of "what could be?"