Urig by cabin head

It has not been until recently that I have had much more success with my paintings and it has to do with a couple prime factors.

I have heard that the more you go on with painting the more you see that the old stuff was not so great and start parting with the mishaps of your past creations. As my journey goes on in this blog I have tried to be honest with what I have created posting everything. So you can see my progress. What you don’t know is that many paintings don’t exist anymore or are part of another painting.

I believe to be really successful building on a new painting, I have to be wiling to give up any portion of a painting that is not working and wipe it out, or even begin the painting again. All of the nuances, beautifully rendered portions, color notes, what have you, gone for the greater good of the painting. So what I am trying to say is this,  if you are willing to give up more in a painting, change more things, repaint an area verses holding onto the bad and hoping the rest will fix it, we can paint a better painting.

When we where kids our Mothers or Fathers may have held onto every piece, but we can not do this as mature painters. We need to be able to let go. Why do so many of the old masters painters have so few paintings to show us? Is it that they purged their trial and error development paintings? I know many of them did so.

I used to treasure the parts I had completed too much making it impossible to go back and alter finished portions of the painting. Now if it does not work I simply make it right with a brush or painting knife boldly making dramatic tonal or color changes that help to unite the entire painting. If the background is too light or too dark, then change it. It is remarkable the difference it will make.

Please let me know of your successes.

© 2011 Daryl Urig, All Rights Reserved