Creating Worlds

Minute and Imperceptible Motion
20 x 20"

At a certain point, you might decide that a painting is done.  Then you either stop painting, or, if it doesn't excite you, you throw a foreign object at it (to paraphrase Alex Kanevsky).
This painting was heading down a path that was working: beige skin, warm cheeks, all very plausible and all very ordinary.  I could see its finish while I was in the middle of it.  And that was incredibly dispiriting.  If I couldn't find any excitement in producing the painting, who would be excited by looking at it?
So I put it aside for a bit and did some thinking and looking through old photos.  On a trip to the Met. Museum in NY, a few years ago, I saw this Kees Van Dongen painting:
It dominated the room.  While my photo is probably color skewed, it doesn't matter: it reminded me that I am creating a new world within each painting, and in that world, I make the rules.  If I can't at least create an interesting new world, then there's no point in painting.  Why create mundane things?
When the painting was dry, I oiled it out and put a rich coat of pale green over all of the flesh tones in the light and into the background.  Suddenly, I'd created a world that held some interest for me and I was off!  After that huge transformation, the painting began to offer new ideas and possibilities, and I tried to pursue as many of them as I could.  Green skin was my foreign object and it started up a whole new conversation between me and the canvas.  When I decided it was time to stop, I didn't feel like I'd arrived at a place that I had seen coming from miles away; I was standing on new ground in a new world.  And I'd had a great ride on the way, and that's the whole point.
Happy painting!