A portrait of a bearded man underneath the famous Picasso’s Blue Room has recently been discovered and it turns out this isn’t an isolated case in the artist’s practice. Art materials were expensive and artists were/are in a creative mood all the time so more often than not they (including Picasso) were forced to re-use some of their already painted/drawn canvases.
How about today? Are there any artists that paint over their own paintings? In my experience and from what I know from other artists, the answer is yes. There could be at least two reasons why some artists would re-use some of their already painted canvases and this is either due to the lack of space or because their style has evolved over the years.
If the former is simply a practicality issue, the latter is a matter of re-working and re-inventing an old image that is not representative for that artist anymore. In this case, artists may keep some features within the painting and change some other aspects or they can add more details in order to enhance the artwork.
Just as in Picasso’s case, when he had an idea, he had to paint it and he couldn’t always acquire new canvases. The same may be true even today. How about you, have you ever painted over existing images? What are your reasons?
