The Rush is On

Starting with the finished piece first and then the explanation for a change. I repainted this piece over three or four days while also working on a few other paintings. It took me a bit longer than I expected as I thought I would only "fix" a few areas. I don't think I left anything untouched except the hair on both of their heads.

2017 The Rush is On, oil on canvas 24x24

2010, oil on canvas, 24x24

2016 showing repair and mounted on board (bad lighting lightened up the overall image)

This painting is 6 years old. There is nothing major wrong with it for where I was at 6 years ago. A year or two ago I had hung it in a place where I could look at it with the thought to revisit it. If a painting hasn't sold, it is always fair game. For whatever reason, it fell off the wall one night - it woke me up- and on it's way down, hit a few places and in one particular sensitive area ripped a substantial hole. I could not decide if it was worth fixing or if I should just chuck it. I researched repairing paintings. So many different approaches. Some said do not patch an area as it will shrink at different rates and then will always looked patched, so reline the whole painting. Others said patch and you will be fine! The repair kits I found were nowhere near a 24x24" size. This particular painting was cotton canvas on the 1.5" profile of stretcher bars. Not my favorite painting surface.

After much contemplation, I took it off the stretcher bars and glued it to a gator board trying very hard to line up the edges of the tear across the front waiters forearm. I filled in the area with a bit of gesso and lightly sanded the area. I could not sand it smooth as the texture of this canvas was rough. I tried refilling the area and sanding again. All I can say is that it is as good as I can get it. It was worth trying to save at this point as moving forward I was going to repaint the whole thing. The structure and drawing are pretty good so it should be pretty straight forward. The major issue with the original version from my perspective today is once again a value thing. So in the redo, I pushed the values away from the middle. Not much color shift overall except in the skin tones. I thought the waiter in the back had too blue gray a skin tone so I lightened up his face overall and to his arm in the shadow made it a reddish blue.

There is something about the original version that I still like but overall I am still happier with the redo.