For years I tended to gravitate towards landscape canvases so when I recently started to introduce portrait and square pieces I found it challenging or at the very least, unfamiliar. I am glad I stuck with it though because now I appreciate how the paintings had to change to adapt to the difference.
Sometimes I do something on a canvas that I really like only for my head to devalue it as being too simple. The best example of that is that green shape on this middle panel. I've been looking at that for months now aching to leave it untouched but worrying that its simplicity might be vulnerable. After five months of looking at it without changing a thing I added the yellow strip down the side today and knew straight away that it was finished.
I have to learn to leave things alone, learn to trust that sometimes all the work that is needed to finish a painting has been done on previous canvases. When something simple but strong suddenly pops out, leave it be.
