Cat 61 (Reworked Cat 50)

       Cat 61 (rework of Cat 50)

       Acrylic on canvas. 16" x 20".

   I recently went through my accumulation of  paintings. Some I really like, but a few struck me as truly horrifying.
   In particular, this painting (Cat 50, at left) from September of 2013, which had been done in a rush to come up with enough pieces for a show.
The form of the cat was badly executed- I did not pay much attention to the proportions and contorted it to fit the canvas. The tail would've worked great on a Lemur. The background was indecisive, although I liked the stripes.

Instead of trashing it, I decided to rework this painting in hopes that would get me past the creative block I've had for nearly a year. My primary goal was to correct the form of the cat. I also wanted to tone down the hyper-saturated colors, soften some edges, and let brushstrokes show instead of the continuous smooth blending. I took my time, made preliminary drawings until I was satisfied with the form and placement before picking up a brush, and I'm pretty happy with how it came out.
   A ways into the painting, I abandoned my usual colors and limited myself to red, blue, and yellow, and white. I used a little raw umber to deepen a few dark areas. This really forced me to mix colors in a way that I don't normally use, and I like the results.

After the initial attempt at painting on top of the original to make corrections, I concluded it was not salvageable. The paint layers were thick, there was no canvas texture left, and the new paint was not seating onto the surface- it was pulling off with every other stroke.
So I tried scrubbing off the layers of paint, mostly to see if I could do it. Running hot tap water over the surface and scrubbing with an old, worn stiff paint brush worked to remove the layers- although I think the heat did most of the work.
   Watching the annoying image slowly disappear was cathartic- until I scrubbed a little too hard in one spot and also removed the gesso and sizing layer, exposing the warp and weft of the canvas- I could literally see through the canvas. Which meant removing the remaining layer from the rest of the surface to keep it even. After scrubbing it down and letting it dry out, I applied gesso to the raw canvas to create a new base. The downside is that the frame warped a little while it dried out. If I ever try this again, the wet frame and canvas should be weighted down on a flat surface while drying, to keep the frame straight. Probably not worth the trouble, though.