Triple Galaxy Painting

Painting image taken Saturday under partly sunny skies.

 Do you ever wonder when enough is enough on a painting?  I have found that taking a quick digital image often helps me see the weaknesses in a painting.  There have been times when I thought I was done and was preparing my images to post a blog entry when I saw flaws that I knew I couldn't live with. Back to the easel...

Saturday was a good day to go outside and spatter paint.

 This is a painting I started several months ago and set aside while I contemplated what else to do with it.  It began with gesso resist monoprints and layers of blue-violet and red-violet.

This past week I added glazes of transparent color to give the painting more depth.  Some were sprayed on with a mister bottle and some were dry brushed on.  I added a bit of spattered gesso.  More glazes were added, but I knew I needed to put more energy onto the canvas.  That can get messy.

Fortunately the weather was calm and mild this past Saturday.  I laid the canvas board on the ground and shielded some of the areas with torn paper and the canvas circles you see on the above image.  Then I aggressively spattered gesso across the painting.  I followed that with some spritzes of glaze color.

Detail from the painting.

I liked the way the canvas appeared.  I like the digital images even better.

Inside my house is another matter.  The lighting is diffused, and the white areas are not distinct like they are on the digital imagery. The painting seemed dark and didn't have the visual movement that I could see outdoors.

This morning I put a thin layer of gloss medium/varnish on the painting.  That helps bring out the whites and gives the painting a bit more depth.  I hesitated to take this step because I wasn't sure I was done adding glaze layers.  The gloss layer isolates any new layers from the previous ones and any subsequent painting will go down differently.

It's time to step back and wait.   Again.