Revisiting old paintings

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 12 x 16 inch canvas panel 

Sometimes I like to re-visit some of my old paintings and rework them. Sometimes I want to make improvements by applying techniques I have learned since the original painting was done. And sometimes I decide to completely obliterate an old one and do something entirely different. Quite often I decide to do reworks when I'm in a creative lull, so why not just play with an old canvas.

This painting was one I painted when I was learning about negative painting and practicing some techniques from a book written by Linda Kemp. This is what it looked like before I made a few changes last night:

Original painting 

I liked the dark and moody tone of the original but I just decided to brighten it up. It's just a cheap canvas panel, so why not play around with it. It's just paint after all.