The Curse of The Ongoing Project

I find the more time I spend with something, the more left-field ideas I get, and they start to clog my brain to the point where I can't actually finish the project. Call it poor self-control. Case in point: The Eyeplant.





Here's the initial sketch I did, in Photoshop (a rarity for me), and the basic palette. All these decisions took at most 10 minutes. If I'd kept going at this rate, the whole thing would've been complete in an hour and a half!





Then, painting begins and progress slows noticeably. At this point more bizarre ideas come flying in and I experiment with them all. Some work well, some...not so much. It goes from a straightforward paint session to a no-holds-barred cacophony of "What if I did..." and "It'd look better if...". This is what I ended up with after several long nights tweaking, changing, and following my every impulse. Needless to say, it took many days longer than expected...









OK, now fast forward a week or two later and there's something missing. I inexplicably followed another impulse, despite feeling comfortable about the state of the painting. Now I wanted to see the completed piece in different formats. Was I just acting out of spite against my brain?! Ahem, after deliberating, tweaking, and redrawing, I produced another iteration...








Did I learn anything? Maybe. If you have the time, why not explore the impulses that crop up while you're working on something. Just, they can never be at the expense of the piece overall.







Until Next Time.