Breezy Spring afternoon, Mumbles Head, 10×10 inches, Oil on canvas board.

Recently I’ve been going through my old paintings, those that I’ve given up on and tossed to one side, thus adding to an already cluttered studio. Perhaps it’s something to do with it being Spring, but I’m in a decluttering mood. I’m poring over each painting deciding whether it should be destroyed, or scraped down and painted over with another subject, or repainted (some are resistant to rehab and get chucked anyway).

Every painting that reaches that elusive stage where I’m reasonably happy (though it has to be said never 100% happy!) seems to generate a motley array of canvases that don’t make the grade and are abandoned. So, it’s particularly satisfying that the painting of Mumbles above which fell into the abandoned category, I’ve now repainted and am reasonably happy. I guess it’s a bit like the return of a prodigal son!