After my post, and Andy Parkinson‘s post, about renewing, reviving old paintings a regular newsletter from US artist Robert Genn appeared in my Inbox – co-incidence? Titled Second Breath, it introduced itself with ‘A “second breath” is a restart of a work after getting a second opinion from yourself. I made up that line while I was walking this morning – so it’s my lead-in to an overdue letter on methods of reworking half-finished or unsatisfactory paintings… Paintings that are not quite right or that are wrong to the point of abandonment sometimes deserve a second breath. ‘
A fellow artist, Terri Gasparich, also commented this week that she had ‘recently completely sanded off and gessoed five canvased ‘old’ paintings – quite liberating!’ Am I being told something? Is it a coincidence that all around me people are commenting on reworking paintings? Is it the economy? Or are we in a time where we should be looking at the value of everything we do, everything we own?
Whatever, now I’m excited and away to the studio for the weekend to work on my two ‘new’ paintings. To finish my working week yesterday, I won a Test The Best set of Mussini Resin-oilcolour from Studio Art Supplies. Scrumptious, perfect for me. It’s a Renaissance recipe unique to German manufacturer Schmincke, where excess fatty oils are replaced by carefully measured amounts of natural resins, that balance the drying, enhance the brilliance, and yellow less than standard oil colours.
Robert Genn finished his newsletter with this from Claude Monet: “I waited for the idea to consolidate, for the grouping and composition of themes to settle themselves in my brain. When I felt I had enough cards I determined to pass to action, and did so.”
