STOP! DON'T TRASH THAT PAINTING!
6/29/2017 8:20:18 PM | By LaVone Sterlng, P.S.A. | Comment on this

It was mid-day when I chanced on a group of scrubby-looking trees and underbrush. I stopped and made a quick sketch and took a few photos. Back in my studio I transferred my sketch to a self-prepared surface. Then I composed what I thought would be a good painting. It just didn't work. With great mental anguish, I fretted over it. I worked and re-worked it. Finally, I became frustrated and I tossed it in the trash. As it happens, the trash in my studio doesn't get dumped very often, which was fortunate for me. A few weeks after my rejecting this painting, and as I prepared to take the studio trash to a container for trash pick-up, I noticed a part of the painting that wasn't too bad. So laid it flat on my drafting table. It was a bit warped. Then I took an 11x14 piece of glass and slid it over the surface until I found what I felt could be saved. I cut away the unwanted sections of the painting. What was left was a rebirth - a brand new painting. It was now a vertical painting with a raised horizon and a flowering desert plant. Here's the amazing part of this story....this little 11x14 section that I saved (along with nine other works), was selected from my FASO website by the editor of Pratique des Arts Magazine, a French publication, as a feature article in their August/September Issue. That's not all! International Artist Magazine also selected it to be in their August/September Issue. Who would have thought!!!! Now, when I have the urge to trash a painting, I don't. Instead, I stick it in a box marked "SECOND CHANCE".