Good advice, Robert, and I think it might be useful to apply it to the unborn works, too. I have an exhibition running at the moment. After much pondering I picked about 50 paintings - arguably my best available ones. I had to put hangers on some, retouch others, and generally get them ready for their "outing". And that really put me on the line. I kept asking myself questions like Why didn't I see that before?, Did I really think it was finished?, Why the .... did I paint that? and not seldom How on earth did I paint that? the last question being directed at the abstract paintings, which make up two thirds of the collection.
And that's where the reinventing gets complicated for me. My reinventing would have to start with something prior to the image in front of me, since what is there has a disconnected life of its own and has escaped from its creator (or perpetrator?).
But what was it that kept me brush-pushing into the early hours? How do you explain and even reconstruct or improve on something when you are baffled by it? Those been-and-gone "mysteries" don't promise "successful conclusions", so maybe I should ask a different question, namely Does what I did before tell me anything about what is to come?
I'm envious of artists who are motivated to paint the same notion over and over again with only slight "conversions". They probably have their ideas all sorted out. Maybe one day.....

Since I have a short attention span, when I'm done with a piece, I'm completely through with it. I've found that when I try to go back, I have no patience with the second generation work. It bores me. I understand your point logically. In practice, for me, it doesn't work. I can go back to other source material, but generally have to ignore or tuck away the first piece or any photo of it. Why? It's a mystery. Why are our brains such black boxes?

I have always felt that when I finished a subject, it was done, finished, never to go back. But this is a very interesting idea to take a subject and re-do it differently in a new way and hopefully, better. I started doing this yesterday on a painting I have had some success with. I took the same subject, thought of a new way to present it in a more interesting way. I could crash and burn, or it could be better than ever!

When I'm done with a painting, I never want to go back to redo it. I've already given it my "all". However, painting one thing usually generates ideas for several new paintings, or different ways to paint. I always come up with many more ideas than I can possibly use, except when I want them -- then they melt away like snow, and I have to refer to my sketchbook. Kind of like a wild animal that may approach if you ignore it, but run away when you look at it.

I can profitably repaint a scene. I did a watercolour of a bike on a beach in Guernsey last May, sold it; repainted it as a larger acrylic showing more of the English channel and a distant shoreline and found it far more impressive & sold that too. Presently as a personal experiment I am doing the very same Point Roberts shore with piles of dried on shore logs in four different mediums, all 16X20, oil, acrylic, watercolour and graphite, and each provides its own interpretation. Perhaps this is a bit off your topic but you got me thinking anyway.

Yes like to try same subject in different medium. Down to just watercolour and acrylic now. Get a totally different picture each try. Not much in oil any more except a few icons. Egg tempra there still most of the time.

The important thing here is not to try to work on the actual canvas, but rather to start a brand new painting based on the same original idea. Very often it is better to completely abandon a previous work than to "try to fix it up." The number of times this ploy can actually work is miniscule. A brand new start with fresh thinking and fresher painting is better.

There is the most amazing variety of information in the new LETTERS book. Something different on every page, and valuable.

A refreshing concept! I often 'go back' to a piece after letting it rest. It may be a week or a year. 90% of the time it becomes a more powerful statement. The other 10% is a toss. I currently have a solo exhibit and the piece that sold out of ALL is the oldest and a reworked one at that.

Your article was timely as I was just commissioned to do a piece "similar" to a piece already promised to an auction. The debate was whether or not it was ethical to repaint a painting for a second sale and would it devalue the original. Or maybe the question I should ask is how different should it be.

Usually all my energy goes into the painting and I try to paint it all in one session. But I do set it where I can look at it or turn it to the wall so I can get a fresh perspective. I find it hard to return to the painting with the same feeling and same hand. But have revisited similar subjects at a later date.

I'm recently painting the same plein air scene over and over for different effects to enter into different shows. My approach are pretty much the same, but the sizes and materials that I'm painting on are changed. I couldn't repaint it exactly if I wanted to so I don't even try. It's meerly a direction in which to get started.

I often paint in the same location, which really challanges the imagination to see something different. So I'm not so much looking at the finished painting for what can I change, but the muse itself.

I am so drawn to the immediacy of Tammy Callen's fresh expressive work. Starting to paint around 50 I j9ust wanted to agree it's never to late to develop your art and find a career, imagine all you have stored inside over the years!

I was 43 when I started painting, taking lessons from the local artists here in Santa Fe. After years of painting and discovering my voice, I have had the good fortune of finding the perfect business partner (Barbara Meikle, another artist) and opening a gallery (2006). We show our work and the work of several other outstanding artists. I am truly blessed...

A year ago I rented a house in Paris for two months. A dream for a long time. I wanted to spend as much time in the museums as I cared to which I did. I am very impressed with Tammy Callens work. It was like being back in the D'Orsay again.

I am dismayed when I hear artists say they are done with a work or an idea or concept after only one or two attempts. Your brain is a muscle and needs repetitive exercise. On some works I repaint it until I feel I get what I want. There is no reason to abandon even a successful work. I had a work in a show that sold and another client wanted it, I told them that I had photo references of the scene and would be happy to attempt to recapture the mood and feeling from the photos. They were willing and loved the result. The painting and the scene were in me and the photos helps bring me back to do a new painting.
The two are not exact, but they loved it and bought it. I go back to the same places at different times of the year and paint the same scene. I've painted the same model countless times with better and better results each time. For me no subject is ever off limits after one painting. Subsequent attempts are usually better because I'm more familiar with the subject and inject some new thought or feeling about it. Try it. Paint a simple still life five times, different days and see for yourself the results. Do them small 8x10

One never knows what will happen when returning to a past painted subject. A particular pastel painting that I had done and even won a national award on, I had decided to do it over again thinking maybe I could improve upon it by changing various elements of the subject matter. Anyway, I ended up selling the second painting very fast, while the first one that had won the award has not yet sold. I found the second one much more interesting and learned much.

Tammy, as you know, age is relative. If you think back to your 20's or 30's you may have had moments when you felt "old," but now you reflect on that time as young and full of possibilities. Take it from someone who is 64, your excellent work is 'young' and full of promise and a future. Delight in the foundation you have already made. These are extraordinarily beautiful paintings - thanks to Robert for pointing out all the reasons why.

Speaking of age. I'm now in my mid-senior years and finding that I want to tackle new motifs, not revisit the old. In many ways it's convenient not to depend on art for most of one's income. I do not have to sell. In fact, mostly I sell in order to socialize, and it works wonderfully for that purpose. But when I'm done with something it's finished. Either it goes to storage, to a gallery, to a friend and/or collector, or to the trash bin. Then in my next outing I'm on to something fresh, or a completely new shot at the source material. I have X days left, and they will be spent doing precisely what I want, and what I've wanted so far, since I've been in this situation, is to paint new challenges every time. I'm blessed. (Who did the blessing is up for grabs, but it's a dead cert that however I got to where I am now, I'm tickled to have arrived.)