Changes

Silence oil on canvas 60" X 48" Chris De Dier


Painting can be a very unpredictable activity. Sometimes I labor for weeks on end to finish a work to my satisfaction and no matter what I do to it, it just continues to fail. Though I do not give up easy, occasions occur when I eventually need to let go of it.
At other times, a great painting just seems to flare up on the canvas with minimum effort.
This painting started out as a desert plain with a mountain range on the horizon. Wind was pulling up dust and sand into a dust devil, the main subject. It didn't ever look right and a month passed before I gave up. Then a few weeks later I decided to paint over it, do something totally different. Without any preconceived idea I began filling in, changed shapes, saved what looked pleasing and suddenly, through pure improvisation, it became what it is now. It is one of my favorite works.

Not that any of the above is of any importance whatsoever to the finished work, but I was wondering if that happens a lot with other artists as well, or if I just don't know yet what I'm doing.