The Fog is Lifting

Is it wrong to want to re-paint the same painting over again? I always want to continue to improve my work, but this idea of painting over, or re-painting, works that I've already done is fairly new to me. It started when I spoke with the owner of a gallery my work is in, who said "Everyone loves this particular painting that you did, but they want to see it in a larger size." Not long after that, I got a commission from another gallery whose client wanted one of my works in a smaller size.

Mind you, when a work is re-painted, it's never exactly the same. I spoke with one artist who's opinion was that you can never improve on a "first" work. I'm not sure that is true, based on my recent experience. Here is one painting that I sanded down and re-painted over. I liked the first one (shown beneath it) and received some good feedback on it. But this version is the result of 3 different paintings on top of the original. When I first painted over the original, I was very disappointed in the result. It was dark and looked almost like a very old painting that needed cleaning. I thought to myself, "Either I fix it, or burn it," and "If it doesn't work this time, I'll consider it 3 strikes and I'm done with it."

Maybe it's the layering of paint in this work, or the addition of the silhouette of trees in the foreground, but I feel that I finally achieved the ethereal appeal of lifting fog that is so hard to reproduce. I'd love your feedback!

(below is the original painting)