So, remember how a couple days ago I asked for opinions on whether I should totally redo a dogwoods painting I was working on? No? Well, go here and get caught up and then we’ll talk. I’ll wait.

You’re back. Yay! Well, I ignored almost everybody’s advice and decided that I just wasn’t happy with the painting as is. I loved the little watercolor study, but it didn’t translate into a large scale acrylic painting. Plus, there’s this quote from Pablo Picasso that I keep hanging on my shelf of paint that says, “When you begin a picture, you often make some pretty discoveries. You must be on guard against these. Destroy it, do it over several times. With each destruction of a beautiful discovery, the artist does not really suppress it but rather transforms it, condenses it, makes it more substantial. What come out in the end is the result of discarded finds. Otherwise you become your own connoisseur. After all, I don’t buy my own pictures.” So with that in mind, we went from this:

Step 6. Eliminated the black outline and added more dimension to the flowers. Also added some dripping coming down from the flowers.

Step. 7 Added more dimension and eliminated the outline for the branches.

Step 8. Darkened some of the drippings and added a few more to the branches.

And finally to this:

Step 9. Completed painting!

I’m much happier with it now and it was worth the fear of destroying something that was perfectly nice but that wasn’t quite right. I know the resolution on this blog isn’t great, so you can see a higher resolution image on my Facebook page here.

Before and after:

32″ x 80″ diptych, acrylic on canvas