Anatomy of a Painting.

UPDATE: 

To quote Churchill, "Never give in--never, never, never..." I say this because essentially during my darkest hour, it occurred to me that maroon was evil and that cherry blossom pink was my savior. 

Phase 4.

PROPOSED save. I usually do NOT go photoshopping around my paintings, but I was desperate. We'll see how close it comes out in real life. I should move on, but obviously I can't. Acrylic is suddenly the bane of my existence.  Blame it on the materials. This is like watching a train wreck in slow motion isn't it? To me it is. 

Phase 3.

Phase 2 was too locked in. Although raw and slightly primitive, it felt too 1980. I wasn't happy with it. I thought about my gesso issue and thought maybe adding some white drips up top would add another layer  of both meaning and paint to it, but then I kept making more marks. I obliterated the marks, and made sweeping seasick green strokes, giving it some sort of quasi-uniform coverage on the right. I wiped that away, almost immediately and reworked back to Phase 2, but of course, you can never go back, so I added the sea sick green AGAIN. Knowing I was trying to preserve Curler Head there in the middle, which is always a mistake-you can never preserve one area of a painting- It's always the kiss of death when you do- I transformed Curler Head into a bouquet of Curler Head. I added the blue ribbon because I felt like it deserved to win first place. I titled it, "I'm Sorry, It's Over," for obvious reasons. 

Phase 2.

After much refining, I thought I would call it finished here. Still raw, but structured. I titled it Curler Head during this phase. 

Phase 1. 

For a day or two I thought I would call it finished here. It was rough and awkward.