thinking outside the frame

In February I started painting a 20" x 24" landscape of a winter scene, but got bogged down and couldn't figure out how to finish it. I have been staring at it, then hiding it, then staring at it again for over seven months now. Last week, during my purge/reorg, I pulled it out again and resolved to resolve it. First I threw out two small landscapes that I painted at the same time and hated even more than this one. That positive action seemed to kick the gears into motion. I realized that there were parts of the painting I liked, particularly the handling of the paint in the lower left corner. How could I salvage just that part?

So I used my hands as a frame and moved around the painting, trying to find a more interesting composition within the rectangle. That's when I looked at a stack of unused cradled panels sitting on a shelf. Before I knew it I had decided to cut the best part of the painting into 8" x 8" pieces and rework it into a square, four-panelled painting.


Out came the x-acto knife. Cutting the canvas away from the stretcher bars was strangely satisfying after months of indecision.

Next I cut the square pieces to fit the panels.

Before attaching them with acrylic gel medium I painted the sides of the panels in the same dark green as the flat, forested background in the painting.

I put an isolation coat of gloss medium cut with water over the canvas and sides of each panel then finished with a gloss varnish, also diluted with water about 50-50.

I like the result a lot better than the original. Its strange birth hardly brings to mind the deep, spiritual landscape painter alone with her thoughts and easel in God's Country, creating works of great beauty with her blood, sweat and tears, but creativity works in strange ways sometimes. And now that I figured out how to resolve it: what do I do with it?!