The Personal Trainer - Art Process

The Spirit's Notes: I originally completed the pencils for this art work back in April of 1998, and finished the final art in June of that same year. As with many (but not all) of my older art samples, looking back at them now, I am not pleased with the effect of my application of color in that stage of my experience. That dissatisfaction stems from the fact that I feel many of my older artworks do not quite compliment or enhance my overall current portfolio, and in some cases may set back the strengths and levels of my current portfolio of art. So this image, The Personal Trainer is just such an example. The only way I was ever going to use this old art as part of my showcase portfolio, was to repaint it from scratch. I did just that in March of 2009. It is very time consuming to repaint anew, and since time is a commodity, I had to make a choice of whether my time was best served repainting The Personal Trainer or to simply just forge ahead and create some other new art. Since I still did like my original concept and the general composition, well, I decided to and did repaint it. That means that as an artist, if we are painting and drawing our whole lives, not only do our techniques evolve, but so do our standards. Deciding to scrap (or to choose not to display) older art is an option, however by doing that, it acknowledges that the work is deemed a failure, and all the work that went into it was completely in vain. So I do try to salvage older art by upgrading or repainting when I believe it is worth while, however, if I am not fond of an older composition, then indeed I will scrap it as a last resort. Luckily The Personal Trainer was saved from such an awful fate.