It’s happened to all of us. You get inspired by something, you sit down to paint, you finish, and then you look at it and see the mistakes. Ugh. I have to admit, sometimes I don’t notice the mistakes until I take a photo of the final piece for Instagram. For some reason seeing it as a photo, gives me a different perspective on the piece.

So…you made a mistake and you aren’t happy with your painting, now what? Do you dive back in and try again or say “Oh well.” For me it depends. A big factor is how long I worked on the piece. If it was a quickie, like the Gerbera Daisy below, I’ll dive back in. I also weigh how big of a mistake it was. I’ve learned over time, that I’m very critical of a piece right after finishing it, because I’m still “in it.” Several days later I’m much less critical.

For me, the mistake of adding 2-3 extra rows of petals was too big to ignore. I was so happy with the painting until I “saw” what I had done. I had gotten carried away. I immediately started another version.

I’ve had this dilema before and wrote about it, here and here. What I realized back then, is that painting a piece over doesn’t ensure success. It doesn’t ensure a better version. I might correct some mistakes, but lose other good things about the first version.

Do you paint a new version when you make a mistake?