As I begin to show my artwork more consistently to an online audience, I’ve come to realize that having in situ images is an important part of showing my artwork.  It’s the best way to show the scale and dimensionality of a painting and to display to collectors how it might appear in their own home.  And since I just completed and varnished a series of paintings I thought I would give it a try.

As sometimes happens, there were two outliers that were never going to work as part of this series. They were both becoming so laboured and the good parts were becoming too precious to me that I found myself painting around them to preserve what was there. I felt immobilized by indecision every time I wanted to work on them so I found myself avoiding them altogether. To be completely honest, I began to really dislike them. I recognize this feeling. I’ve been here before.

I had an art teacher once that disdained painted edges on a painting. I’m not exactly sure why but I suspect it had something to do with the idea that whatever incidental paint or other material was left on the side of the panel or canvas was evidence of the process of making the painting.

While this is true, it just doesn’t work for me.