Survival of the Fittest....

I painted a slightly controversial painting last week; Well, personally controversial as I couldn't decide whether to paint over it after I had 'finished' it or not. Often, if the painting can get through the night without me redoing it, or touching it up then it has a chance of surviving. If it is really bad then it just gets completely painted over pretty much instantly and I will try again the next day. If it is really, really bad then the black paint comes out and it will be obliterated.

Thankfully this doesn't happen too often. 

The problem comes with not pre-planning things, which is normally fine unless I start with an expectation. I had an expectation with this one, to paint something more abstract, calming, not busy and cleaner than typical - more blocks of colour, less lines.

This totally didn't happen.

I ended up painting something busy, hectic, stylistically mixed, dramatic, in your face, with non typical colours.

How did that happen? This is when you can tell how I was feeling when I painted it. I had too much on my mind, daydreaming about too many things and not being rigorous or concentrated with what I was doing. Mess in my head, mess on the canvas.

In need of inspiration I decided to ask my Facebook followers what they thought I should do with the painting and I got a mixed reception - some suggesting changes, some telling me to wait for a few days and see how I felt and others saying don't touch it, it is perfect. So I will leave it for now. I decided that if I did redo it it would end up being a different painting entirely, in which case I may as well just paint it again or do something else. I think it is easier to see what I was trying to do when you see the photograph I was working from, and I think it is easier to see where my paintbrush ran away to; Sometimes I have no control over the connection from my brain to my hand....