I WAS READING ABOUT MATISSE recently and he talks a great deal about constantly changing his paintings as he worked on them, sometimes completely repainting the composition.
This radical process of changing a painting, as you pursue it is an interesting and satisfying final picture. This is what I want to discuss. The painting of the coffee pot went through enormous changes as I developed it.
There were two criteria for success: a perfect composition and great colour interaction. Choosing simple objects and the view through the window presented a range of problems compositionally and the vibrant red of the coffee pot demanded a context of richly coloured objects. As you can see from the earlyhad a completely different conception of the table before changing the striped cloth for more colourful ones. You need a certain confidence to work this way, but you always need to challenge how well your painting is working. It’s never easy to do this but being self-critical can push your work to the next level.
