Creative heART Challenge: Day 18...

Yesterday, I posted a picture of a painting I made called, "The King".  I was pretty happy with it once I finished, but one thing that I like to do is hang my most recent painting on my studio wall and live with it for a bit.  I'm able to see it from a different perspective and stand back.  I kept frowning at the painting when I looked at it and it quickly became apparent that I wasn't really happy with it at all!  I kept changing things in my head and eventually I couldn't take it anymore and took it down and started to fix it.

Here's a side-by-side view.  Something was off.  I'm trying to fight the compulsion to go back and noodle with my paintings too much... because I'm afraid of overworking them, but there was just something that I couldn't ignore and I had to adjust it.

So... I toned down the white dots with a brown wash and I added a little extra to his silhouette between the horns.  Those were subtle changes, but I think they improved the painting a hundredfold!  The wash helped make it more "of the woods" and less "Green Power Ranger".  It also made the dot pattern look less like glittery rhinestones.  Once I adjust those things, I noticed that the character and the space were not integrated enough and I needed to activate the negative space around the figure.  So I added these halo/solar eclipse forms.  And now it's truly done and I'm much more pleased with it.

So, today wasn't a day spent on making completely new work... but the work I did is work that I'm happy with.  CLICK HERE to see the painting in the online shop.