Green on Green

You might ask, why do I keep painting over old works? Do I not have clean canvas's to start anew? Sometimes, yes I am out of a certain size of canvas or board so I scrounge for a piece that can be sacrificed for the greater good. Other times I choose to use an old painting because it is not worth saving in my opinion and I want to have the colors to come through on the new painting. A quick way to layer color, in other words.

Developing stage 1

Wishing to once more play around with bottles of varying colors of green, I started this piece over an old study I had done awhile back for a larger painting. (See bicycle with balloons below) I wanted to keep some of the color coming through.

Developing stage 2-getting some darks in

I began with a piece of greenish blue rice paper that I set down on the table. I then found 5 greenish bottles out of my collection that worked well together. To block out the background I put up the Japanese doll screen and used the back as the backdrop. It is a light greenish neutral color. Loosely sketching in the bottles I then used blocks of color to quickly block out the distracting balloons and bicycle leaving bits of color and line to show through. Really liking it at this stage and wondering how far do I want to take it?

Stage 3-more form

Proceeding rather cautiously at this stage as I cannot decide what to leave or what to cover. In person, I like the stripes going across the gold label on the right. But in the photos posted here, I am not liking them much. Overall, I do like the way the painting is right now and do not want to get too far along and ruin the energy it has. Any comments on that? Should I leave the line between the bottles on either side and the one in the middle (my sketching guideline)? Does it add to the composition or detract from it?

Green Bottles, 14x11, oil on panel

Writing out my thoughts in questions really helped me decide what I wanted to do. As you can see in the finished painting, I took out the sketching guide although there is a hint of it left. The dark lines across the bottle on the right also came out but not in the background. I should have been able to paint this in one sitting, but I took my time on it so that the likelihood of me getting carried away might be tempered.  Working on it in small bite-sized pieces.