Saving an Abandoned Painting

After finishing “Rooftop Dancers,” I wanted to continue with another large, figurative painting. I had an old canvas that was the size I wanted. It was a piece that had been sitting unfinished in the basement for several years. I was going to take the canvas off the frame and re-stretch it, but I couldn’t quite do it. I had to give to painting another chance.

I started the piece in winter from a photograph and a smaller version of the same scene. I was a bit stuck and was having a hard time with color, so I painted the whole painting with white paint, bringing out the image solely through texture. The plan was to bring in delicate, translusent color glazes, but I have no experience with glazing and it didn’t work out the way I had hoped. I wished that I had left it white, because it was quite nice at that stage.

I decide to go back into it and just paint leaving the underlying texture as I could but not worrying too much about preserving it. I took this photograph after playing around with the sky and a few other areas. I am also including a close-up to show texture.

The smaller version of the scene was published last summer in Shambala Sun Magazine.