Happy Accident

Lions and Tigers and Azaleas, Oh My. Oil on stretched canvas, 10x20

This painting is a revision of "Azalea Dreams," a piece I did a few weeks ago. Sandy, who runs Center Framing & Art, the gallery in West Hartford that's representing me, looked at that painting and suggested that I add more flowers and loosen up the trees on the right-hand side.

I was willing to give it a try, but not to just put more flowers into the original painting. I really like that painting, and I thought I might ruin it. Instead, I chose to repaint the scene, this time with more flowers, more color.

I decided to paint over an old canvas, something I often do. I like recycling the pieces that don't work for me. I like to have them gone, and I like painting over their bumpy surfaces.

I usually turn them upside down when I paint over them, so I won't be distracted by what I've already painted. But this time, I left the painting right-side up, mostly (and here is an insight to how lazy I am) because I had a good signature on the earlier painting, and I thought I'd just re-use it.

I painted without paying much attention to what I was doing, in terms of the first painting, and when I stopped and looked up, I saw that the sunlit trees from the first painting had ended up at the mouth of the path in the second painting. Cool!

I have to agree with Sandy, that the painting works better with more flowers. So all in all, this was a good experiment and a happy, happy accident.

Thanks for reading!