Sometimes we paint and then the canvas becomes what it is only for a time.
One of the things I have always said is that anything with a beginning has an ending. This is a truth in all cases.
The end may however be a new beginning.
There is no knowing if that new beginning will be better or worse, though often we have a feeling about it.
No matter, we must go on.
This painting is called Blood Crow.
It is obviously a cubist inspired painting. It’s a funny thing that my father always loved cubism, and I did not until it slowly worked into me as he was dying of cancer. It’s been less than two years since he passed. I still sometime think I need to go ask him something…
Anyways, he was my art teacher. My main one anyway. If you follow me you know all about that, but if not I’ll say that I received from him the same lessons and training he received as an adult pursuing his Masters in fine arts at UW, and then what he taught to adult as well before I hit my teens along with much more.
One of the things he pushed hardest on me was that nothing is precious. No art is precious.
He’d scribble on my finished drawings, or splat paint on my best paintings. Sometimes he’d just say to paint over it and start again, or do something else.
You can look back at this post with a painting called piercer and see the canvas that is now Blood Crow as the canvas that was once Piercer.
You can also see a cool mini vid showing the process here on YouTube (Paint over painting) that has a snippet from a song about this exact thing.
No, nothing is precious, that is what I was taught.
I have always just been able to paint over pretty much anything. Not just canvases, but whatever life has thrown at me.
This year I learned two things when it comes to this.
The first is that some things you can’t just paint over. They paint over you. That is in the song.
The other thing is that if you just paint over things you may forget what is underneath, but it’s still there.
To truly unmake it you must scrape it away, destroy it completely.
Here, for this one… I’ll just paint over it.
You can get a print of this HERE – Blood Crow Cubist Painting via LaidigArts.com