Starting Again | Tess W.'s Magnolia, part 3
Sometimes you have to destroy what you’ve made to find what works
Dear Tess
There were things I liked about the painting I’d managed so far, on canvas, of your magnolia. But on balance, as I mentioned yesterday, I wasn’t happy with the composition. And you would tell me later that you had the same misgivings.
The sky was too big.
This is the third email (of four) about a painting commission.
Read the previous email here
I think I had spent so much time photographing the storm clouds when I visited you that I came away with an exaggerated sense of the sky’s presence. What to do? I wondered about minimising the sky, in order to maximise the sense of an urban garden. This would mean making a big change. I didn’t want to do that without seeing what was possible.
I tried it first on my iPad:
Much better!
Starting again
I decided to restart the big canvas, took out a tub of white gesso, and started to paint over it. Here are some photos:
Version 1, before I painted over it.
Starting to paint white gesso over the sky.
Having covered the sky, I paint over the buildings.
Now most of the magnolia has been painted over too.
It was strangely satisfying to get rid of version 1. Tomorrow I’ll show you how the new version went.