Do Over -The Oil Painting Must be Destroyed

fire The contemporary landscape oil painting of Marin, California, that I have spent hours creating must be destroyed.   Sometimes I have to just let go. Yes.  Even after I have labored over a large expensive canvas, used up valuable oil paint, and I've lived with the painting for a while, so that I can gain editorial distance, I just have to surrender it to Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction. Why?  Because it’s not good enough! People think I’m nuts. They ask me to give them my unsigned throwaways but that’s like asking me to print my bad rough drafts.  It is just not going to happen. How could I do this?  Because it is never lost on me that my patrons of an Experience of Art have made a significant investment, they have an emotional attachment to the oil painting, and they will probably live with it for the rest of their lives. So I need to bring it. I am honor bound to do my best.  It’s better to wait, invest more energy and time, and get it right. The good news is that the bad paintings are a path to the good paintings. Mr. Neil is giving an Experience of Art as a gift to his lovely wife. So I have purchased a brand new 36" x 48" canvas, and more oil paint and supplies.  I finished the charcoal sketch late last night and today I will complete the under painting where I establish the values, light and dark of the composition. What I present to him will be the best I can do and I can never allow it to be too precious. Since I want them to feel it, I have to feel it.  And if I don’t, it just has to go.
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