Knowing when to throw in the towel

Part of the process of becoming a skilled artist, is knowing when to abandon a painting. It's part of every artist's path to develop the instincts to know when you’ve reached a point to throw in the towel and start over your painting.

There aren’t many reasons to continue a flawed painting, so why not learn some lessons and start over with some new knowledge. I recently abandoned a painting and started over. The second version is coming along nicely now.

Here are a few reasons to stop working on an unfinished painting:

• No concept: the idea to be realized by the painting is not clear or doesn’t exist
• Bad composition: the composition doesn’t focus the eye and keep the viewer’s attention. There is no movement or flow within the painting. The proportions of the elements are not appealing.
• Inconsistent styles: too many styles are competing
• Colours: the colour choices have led to mud, lifeless colours. The ratio of warm and cool is improper.

I completed a small painting this week for an upcoming 3-hour workshop to be held on Feb 6th in the afternoon. You can sign up as of January 17th. 

 In addition, I am working on a number of different paintings.  Here are two of them that I'm demoing with my classes.



For this one, we are working on the shadows before painting the jean fabric.


In addition I'm working on one for my series of silver and crystal and  on the project for my second class with Angus McEwan. By next weekend, I hope to have finished at least one of these two.  This is my project with the class I'm taking.

Have a great week,


Danielle