Finding the Good in a Bad Painting

'The Secret Garden'            8x10         pastel        ©Karen Margulis
available $150

 It is day two of the Great Summer Studio Clean up. Things are progressing nicely. I spent the morning organizing my finished paintings. I store them in boxes and they had become mixed up over the last year. It was fun to sort through old paintings. Some were fun to see and surprised me but many were just plain bad....I ended up with a big pile of BAD.

It is a good thing to have bad paintings. That means you are making progress. It means that you are learning what makes a painting strong and when it isn't working. Bad paintings are a sign of growth.

We have to paint miles of bad paintings before we can consistently paint good ones.

Yet I can't bring myself to throw out a bad painting. Not only do I not want to waste good paper, I want to learn from my mistakes. I want to challenge myself to see the good parts of a painting and build upon that.

An assortment of unfinished paintings to be recycled

This afternoon I needed to take a painting break so I selected a painting from the recycle pile to rework. I am still excited about exploring the reference photos I took in Chicago so I found an old painting that I could turn into a summer prairie garden. Let's look at the good I found in this dull painting and how I transformed it.

Old plein air painting rescued from the recycle bin....a bit dull

• The old painting had a nice lead in pathway and I like the strong tree line. Both of these elements were in my new reference photo. Otherwise the painting was too busy and overly warm. It needed help!

• I brushed down the painting leaving a ghost image of the scene. I then sprayed it with workable fixative to restore some tooth. This was a piece of Pastel Premier sanded paper.

• I reinforced the dark trees and added some dark 'dirt' in the meadow. I slightly adjusted the path.

• I changed the color of the sky to a warm early morning yellow and cut into the tree line changing the shape and type of trees.

• I worked on the trees adding the greens of summer. I added a blue green to the distant trees.

• Next I worked on the grasses and flowers. This is a naturalized prairie garden in the city. This park provides inspiration for many of my paintings and it was wonderful to paint it in it's summer glory.

• The flowers were just starting to bloom while I was there adding a bit of color to the wonderful green grasses.

Try This: Can you find something good in a painting that you think is bad? Play up the good part and make it into something new!

Thoughts Behind a Recycled Painting

'Winter Beach Walk'         9x12       pastel       ©Karen Margulis
available $150

 I just started my yearly studio clean up. I'm a little late but I always like to start the year with a clean and organized studio. Today I began to go through my stacks of paintings from last year. You all know by now that I don't throw anything out. That includes scrap paper! Often I will use a piece of paper to illustrate a point for a student. It is easier to show it than just explain it!

That leaves me with a pile of paper with a few pastel marks. This year I plan to use these 'mini demo scraps' and create recycled paintings. I will share my thoughts behind the process of taking a scrap and turning it into a painting. Enjoy today's installment.

Scrap paper with a mini demo....time to recycle!

 Today's scrap is a mini demo I did for a student illustrating how I paint sand and shadows on the sand. It was on a piece of gray Canson Mi-teintes paper. I decided to stick with the theme of sand and paint a sand dune! I turned the paper to a horizontal format and brushed out the demo as best as I could.

The demo brushed out with a new painting blocked in

I was working from a photo of a dune in North Florida. I liked the moody quality which I wanted to convey. But I also liked the bit of light on the dunes. I blocked in the dune with the edge of a middle value pastel.

my reference photo

• I selected a few pastels keeping a limited palette of gray-blues, greens and peaches. I started with  dark brown and violet Terry Ludwig pastels and blocked in the dark areas on the dune. This would be the dried grasses.
• Next I worked on the sky. I wanted to be sure to get the right mood quality so I started with a pale green. I added some pale peach and yellow for the light in the sky and ended with some grayed blues for the clouds at the top of the sky.
• To keep color harmony in the painting I used the same pastels in the sea and sand. I wanted a connection between the earth and sky.
• Next it was time to add the light to the edge of the dunes. I used some rich peach pastels to create this light that is breaking through the clouds and illuminating the dunes.
• The dried grasses at the top of the dunes were created with the edge of a Terry Ludwig pastel. A few touches of orange on some of the grasses were the final touches.

******************Come Paint with me in Florida this February!********************

There are still a couple of spots remaining in my February workshop at the North Port Art Center in Venice Florida. (Feb 11 & 12)This two day workshop will focus on color. It is suitable for artists of any level of experience. I'd love the opportunity to share with you. Here is the link to more information http://northportartcenter.com/product/cooking-with-color-workshop/