Mixed media palette knife floral painting
Available here

In the space between chaos and shape there was another chance.
― Jeanette Winterson

This painting almost ended up biting the dust. I was thisclose to grabbing my jar of black paint, and painting over the entire thing. It started out looking like this..

And I absolutely hate it. It was too dark, too blue, too yellow, too.. yawn, b o r i n g. The only thing I liked about it was the collage paper you see poking through at the bottom, and the glass. I knew I had to change it because I didn’t want it going out the door looking like a hot mess. 

I used to be into dark colors, and I still am..for my portrait paintings. When I started painting florals again three years ago, I didn’t think to change my palette, so a few paintings were painted with darker colors. Colors I’d never reach for when painting a floral today. 

Getting the painting from there to here was a bit of a challenge. The first thing I did was sand it down, and then I started covering up those hideous dark blue flowers, and yellow background. I’m so in love with the background now with the swirly light blue, pink and white. Such an improvement! I knew I wanted to keep some of the collage paper showing through at the bottom, so I did. 

Every time I revise a painting, it reminds of something I learned while taking an online class from Misty Mawn a few years back. She said something like, “Paint until you love it. If you don’t love it, keep going until you do.” This painting is now finished.