Western Valley 8x10
Hello, and welcome to Tonalist painting by M Francis McCarthy.
Today's painting is 'Western Valley' 8x10.
Our video features the evolution of this painting from its previous state to the new and improved final painting. Also featured is my usual rambling narration. so please check the video out.
Today I would like to talk about redoing, refurbishing or completely repainting old paintings. This painting, 'Western Valley' originally looked quite a bit different. If you would like to see that difference please check out the earliest frames of the video. I have spoken about repainting and redoing paintings extensively in the past on my old blog. You can look here and here and scroll down to read quite a lot about my views (at least at that time) about it.
There is an art marketing author whose book I have read and enjoyed called Jason Horejs. I'm on his email list and so I get notified when he writes blog posts. One of the topics he's written about recently is old artwork in your inventory and the various strategies for dealing with it. He mentions things like having a sale, redoing old pieces, or even in some cases completely destroying old work.
I don't mind having old paintings around as long as they are good. One great thing about evolving as a painter is that it gives you the ability to see your old work more clearly and in a fresh light. Since I now have some time and distance between myself and the older work of art, I can often fix it up without dealing with issues like emotional attachment based on slavish amounts of time spent creating the original.
I've recently redone about 40 or so paintings in the last three months. In some cases I might have just applied a glaze and a few extra highlights, in other cases I might have had the board cut down to a smaller size creating greater interest and more clearly featuring the focal point. In a few instances, I have completely covered the surface of the old painting with an entirely new painting that utilizes only fragments of the original. I speak quite a lot about this process in the video so if you'd like to hear more about it please check it out.
I will probably show another two or three of these redos over the next few weeks, if this process interests you stay tuned.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Western Valley' 8x10; I was sort of happy with the original painting, mostly because I thought I got a good feeling of distance and air in the sky. There were some aspects of it I was less than happy with and those were the odd shape of the mountain, and in the sky there are these two dark clouds coming in from each side creating sort of a strange arrow effect. In other way's the painting left me feeling a bit cold. I was happy with the way I painted the middle ground strand of trees, but given the odd shape of the mountain and other issues, this painting became a nominee for significant reconstruction.
If you watch the video, you can see that the new painting follows the same sort of angle as the previous, although is much more of a close-up scene than the original painting. I left quite a lot of the sky intact but the sky also feels different. Of the 15 or so paintings I redid at the time I painted this, I would say 'Western Valley' is the one I am the most happy with and I'm really pleased with the way it turned out.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
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| Western Valley by M Francis McCarthy, 8x10 Oil Painting on Wood Panel |
Our video features the evolution of this painting from its previous state to the new and improved final painting. Also featured is my usual rambling narration. so please check the video out.
Today I would like to talk about redoing, refurbishing or completely repainting old paintings. This painting, 'Western Valley' originally looked quite a bit different. If you would like to see that difference please check out the earliest frames of the video. I have spoken about repainting and redoing paintings extensively in the past on my old blog. You can look here and here and scroll down to read quite a lot about my views (at least at that time) about it.
There is an art marketing author whose book I have read and enjoyed called Jason Horejs. I'm on his email list and so I get notified when he writes blog posts. One of the topics he's written about recently is old artwork in your inventory and the various strategies for dealing with it. He mentions things like having a sale, redoing old pieces, or even in some cases completely destroying old work.
I don't mind having old paintings around as long as they are good. One great thing about evolving as a painter is that it gives you the ability to see your old work more clearly and in a fresh light. Since I now have some time and distance between myself and the older work of art, I can often fix it up without dealing with issues like emotional attachment based on slavish amounts of time spent creating the original.
I've recently redone about 40 or so paintings in the last three months. In some cases I might have just applied a glaze and a few extra highlights, in other cases I might have had the board cut down to a smaller size creating greater interest and more clearly featuring the focal point. In a few instances, I have completely covered the surface of the old painting with an entirely new painting that utilizes only fragments of the original. I speak quite a lot about this process in the video so if you'd like to hear more about it please check it out.
I will probably show another two or three of these redos over the next few weeks, if this process interests you stay tuned.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Western Valley' 8x10; I was sort of happy with the original painting, mostly because I thought I got a good feeling of distance and air in the sky. There were some aspects of it I was less than happy with and those were the odd shape of the mountain, and in the sky there are these two dark clouds coming in from each side creating sort of a strange arrow effect. In other way's the painting left me feeling a bit cold. I was happy with the way I painted the middle ground strand of trees, but given the odd shape of the mountain and other issues, this painting became a nominee for significant reconstruction.
If you watch the video, you can see that the new painting follows the same sort of angle as the previous, although is much more of a close-up scene than the original painting. I left quite a lot of the sky intact but the sky also feels different. Of the 15 or so paintings I redid at the time I painted this, I would say 'Western Valley' is the one I am the most happy with and I'm really pleased with the way it turned out.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
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| Western Valley 8x10 (Detail) |
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| Western Valley 8x10 (Detail2) |