Open Studios is at the end of this month, so I should be finishing paintings in progress

My wall at City Art, October 2013

Yesterday, instead of the precarious work of saving difficult areas of paintings while not destroying those I like, and having it all hold together (it is so much more fun starting art than completing it), I took out a very old painting and began reworking it. My early paintings tend to be less saturated in color, as I believe I used to begin drawing in black with white, bringing in grays (nowadays I usually start with white, then yellow, then orange). The finish was usually matte, but often with the texture of previous even older paintings showing through, and my style was bold and loose in a way that I do miss now. The drawing was strong too, but I didn't go beyond the photographic source to really flatter the subjects and create a little world like I do now. So, I started by adding red lipstick to the women in the old, unsold painting and just like in real life, it livened them up. I couldn't stop there. Looking at my Pinterest page of favorite paintings, I see the common themes of people and a black-white-red-violet palette, so I want to see if I can make this painting into one of  those. I will also have to restretch it to address the compositional awkwardness, and frame it to hide the rewrapped edges.