. . . made some repairs

Shown here is a portion of a painting I completed a while ago, before I painted the cruciform paintings I have already shown on this blog. I remember being in a big hurry to complete it and send it on its way with my NY art guy. In fact, I had been in such a big hurry that I had not photographed it before I part with it.


This painting has been sold. . . which is a good thing. However, it was returned to me for repairs. . .which is not a good thing. I will admit that in the past I have used some questionable materials in my paintings in an effort to make them interesting or textural or just to see what happened (or mainly because it was a whole lot less expensive than artist-grade supplies.) But I won't use spackle or any kind of Home Depot stuff any more, because it just won't work on canvas. It chips and flakes and peels off and in the long run, it is not less expensive. For me it was a complete waste of my time because I would not allow these paintings to be sold and I didn't know how to repair them, and neither did anyone else.


That being said, I will tell you that for this painting, I used only artist-grade materials, Liquitex and Golden gesso and paint. But the paint and gesso is chipping off and cracking, not on the entire painting, just on the edges. And not on the part that is shown here. The more I tried to repair it, the more chipped off, until I found that I have to repaint entire sections. This is a complete mystery to me. Perhaps in my hurry to finish it, I didn't wait for the lower layers to completely dry. A more experienced painter could probably tell what the problem is; I would like to know so that it doesn't happen again. And I will tell you that I kind of like the painting better while it was in the midst of repair. But that's not how it was sold, and so I'm putting back the layers, slowly and carefully. And it's getting me back in the studio, which I have been avoiding lately.