Get 10% OFF your first online course – Offer expires in minutes.

Here’s the painting post panic…..smoothed & brushed & tamed. I prefer the wilder first one, but doing this has been a very good learning process. I often feel I paint what’s expected – to please an audience. I’d find it very helpful, Louise, if you could do a post-painting video showing how you move on from an initial paint session to a finished painting. How do you return to a painting after a few days/weeks of ignoring it.

Here’s the painting post panic…..smoothed & brushed & tamed. I prefer the wilder first one, but doing this has been a very good learning process. I often feel I paint what’s expected – to please an audience. I’d find it very helpful, Louise, if you could do a post-painting video showing how you move on from an initial paint session to a finished painting. How do you return to a painting after a few days/weeks of ignoring it.

Skills

Posted on

March 16, 2025

4 Comments

  1. Karen Gunn

    Thank you. Mike for your thoughts. I prefer the sky in this one, the first felt a bit chaotic! Maybe i should attack the foreground sometime soon?

  2. Karen Gunn

    Thank Louise – I think I’m learning to become a better destroyer and not stress about what went before. Thank s for your feedback. Lots to think about

  3. Mike Wilkinson

    In the first version the brushwork is particularly vigorous and energetic. You’ve still retained some of that in this version. I think I prefer this one as the values overall are stronger and the contrast in the sky is more dramatic.

  4. Louise Balaam

    Really good to see these two versions of the same painting Karen. I agree that I like the wildness of the first version – but in the second one you haven’t smoothed it over too much I don’t think, plus you’ve lightened it and added more colour (though still muted) which I like. There’s more structure in the foreground as well which I think is an improvement.
    That’s such an interesting point about painting for an audience- I think we can all end up doing that, often unconsciously. I’m having a think about doing a video about that stage from the first pass to resolving the painting in a second session. I do think it’s good practice to be prepared to destroy a lot of the initial work, or at least not to end up just tweaking it – I find quite often that the painting will change quite a lot on the second session, which I think is a good thing. I like that sense of not knowing where the painting will go and being surprised by the final result! Of course occasionally I feel the painting has worked after the first attempt, but often it doesn’t.

Submit a Comment