Success Is Not Good Enough - "If It Ain't Broke, Break It."

A detail of "Dragon Song"
The texture after two layers of glossey gooe

"Dragon Song" was a good painting but after reading Martha Marshall's post - http://artistsjournal.blogspot.com "If It Ain't Broke, Break It" I was inspired to try something that could wreck it. I wanted a candied apple dripping gloss to make "Dragon Song" a delicious red painting. Well, needless to say the Liquitex acrylic gloss varnish applied with a brush thinly did not make a smooth glassy finish. It accentuated the irregularities in texture. So I put on another coat. Still the same tortured reflective ripples. Then I poured the medium thick and gooey. It looked like a big flat lake as smooth as can be until it started drying. I sprayed to help smooth it and started making star bursts of hundreds of little tiny comets. It developed erosion canyons.

Taking in the new developments at first unwanted developments, I had to make a decision on whether or not to junk the painting. Or make it into something different. With the intention of destroying what I had done I started to do what Martha Marshal does with some of hers. I started drawing in the gooey thick acrylic medium with a screwdriver. Then I saw the possibilities of molding the new idea to what was underneath. I drew musical notes and carved around the edges of the dragon. The texture and the form work together. The little comets suggest movement of the musical notes. I like the glass effect and have enhanced it with some sprinkled glitter.

My imagination is alive with new ways of using acrylic paint that I would never have dreamt of without breaking what was a good painting.