Paintings from the Heart #1

At the beginning of each year I clean out my file cabinets, clean out my flat files and look around the Studio for paintings that aren't my best. First up this year is an 18x24 inch pastel scene of our lake. I loved parts of it but you know how those precious areas convince you to call it done and frame it. Other areas were not great so it needed to go. I never throw paintings away, I just rework them.

The paper is LaCarte so I can't wash it off. I took it outdoors and brushed it off then brushed more off in the studio and vacuumed it.

This is the ghost of the old painting, turned upside down.

I'm not using a reference photo. Instead, I'm letting the ghost image suggest a scene to me. I'll call this reworked series "Paintings from the Heart" because they are imagined or remembered. Paintings from the heart sounds better than paintings from my brain.

A few more minutes of painting brings it to this. In total, this is about 30 minutes of painting. Keep it fast, simple, spontaneous. Painting with abandon.

From the Heart: River, pastel, 14 x 24 inches ©2018 Barbara Benedetti Newton

While I'm on the subject of reworked paintings, following is a link to a page of reworks. The last post was years ago.   Link to reworked paintings