I've been marbling and painting so much lately, I scarcely have time to write about my process. But I'm excited about an old failed painting in my "slush pile" that I managed to revive through a combination of re-marbling and overpainting (using acrylics) so I thought I'd blog about it.

"Windswept #3" (acrylic/marbling on paper, 12 x 16") began as a pale marbled figure with an outstretched arm, done mostly in blues. (I actually don't have a photo of the very first step before I turned the pale marbled paper into a figure).

You can see how delicate the original marbling was on this painting; after I finished marbling, I drew in the figure and put a blue wash using acrylics on her dress.

Then I added a sage green colored rectangle behind the figure in an attempt to break up the white background. I added a collage moon of sorts.

But really, this painting felt boring and pale, so I put in a pile in my garage--with other "so-so" paintings. I either paint over them later, or paint on the back side of the paper.

I always write in pencil the date completed (or abandoned) on the back of every painting; this one was from 2012. I continued to paint, marble, and work on other paintings, and 4 years went by. Last week, I happened to reach into my old pile of unfinished paintings (my favorite way to find inspiration) and came across this old painting. Suddenly I took the painting upstairs to my studio and decided it need BRIGHT orange and DARK blue to really strengthen it. 

Feeling brave, I added two new navy blue "ribbons" and even though I didn't love the painting, I thought I might try re-marbling it to see what happens. My goal was to cover some of that navy blue and better integrate it into the painting. 

To my surprise, the second go-round of marbling did the trick. I used synthetic ox gall to break "holes" into the marbling so the pattern would be wispy, not solid. My marbling colors were lavender, black and a bit of red.

Later, in the studio, I used a stencil to put light blue pattern over the two dark blue "ribbons" in the lower part of the painting (to better integrate them).

I THOUGHT I was finished, but then I showed this version to my critique group and we all agreed that the hair needed reshaping, and the "arm shaped" part of the scarf (which runs parallel to her actual arm) had to go.

I took the painting back up to my studio, and used several layers of orange/red acrylic to cover the long part of the scarf. I did some reshaping/overpainting of the hair and narrowed one end of the lower right blue ribbon.

Finally, I decided to crop the painting at the top---too much dark blue wasn't serving the rest of the painting. So it went from 12 x 18" to 12 x 16" but I think the finished piece is much stronger.

I titled it "Windswept #3" because I have two previous Windswept paintings that depict a woman in a similar pose.

Persistence is key---and keeping some old paintings around is not such a bad idea after all. Sure, there are many paintings that can never be revived, despite my best intentions, but I'm learning to recognize the ones that are worth my efforts.

I had an epiphany the other day, and I suddenly realized why I've had a good burst of completed paintings this month: I started with no (or low) expectations. I should explain that in the course of my many years of marbling papers (using acrylics), I've amassed quite a stack of lovely, patterned papers. I file them by year in my garage/storage space. Some of them are so lovely, I can't bear to paint on them, but others are, well, less than stellar.  So, I created a "slush pile" of the marbled papers that I really don't like. Maybe they are too busy, too murky, too blue, too red....they just don't speak to me. I contemplated selling them, or even giving them as gifts, but months went by and they continued to sit on a table untouched. I'd written them off as unworthy of developing into paintings.

Recently, I was organizing my paintings for an upcoming show, and came across these "failed" marbled papers. Suddenly, I grabbed a few and took a closer look at them: I began to see potential! Excited, I took a few papers up to my studio and began turning these failed marbled papers into finished paintings! The one I'm most pleased with is "Treehouse #6", acrylic marbling/collage on paper, 13 x 19". You can see the progression from raw paper to finished painting: