A New Year's Ritual

Happy New Year, everyone! Who doesn't love to open a fresh calendar, smooth the page open to January, and start a new year?  To make the transition even more enjoyable, I have a special year end ritual at the studio: I destroy old paintings that have never been finished to my satisfaction. It's very cathartic! Getting rid of these old clunkers makes way for new inspiration--both literally and figuratively.

"Reflections and Rooflines"
16 x 24, Oil on Linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2016
Available

What happens to the old clunkers? If they are painted on the very expensive Belgian linen that I love so much, I often remove the varnish, sand them down a bit, and paint over them.  The linen is just too precious to waste! It's actually fun and helpful to have a counter-image

underneath to "work against". The painting above was painted over an old clunker, and I was very pleased with it. When I finished this one, I felt like I had snatched victory from the jaws of defeat!

Sometimes it's simply not worth trying to salvage the canvas. In that case, a trip to the dumpster is in order. Some people find the very idea of this horrifying. If you are one of them, just click this link to read about what factors warrant destruction of a painting. I promise that you will feel better about the destruction process after you read it. Meanwhile,  now that my annual ritual has freed up so much psychic and physical space, stay tuned for new work to come in the new year...