Struggling still…

I had really hoped that something would have “occurred” to me by now to solve this little painting’s dilemma. Last night I put in some thin horizontal lines in the lower right quadrant, an effect that I like, but it seems I always resort to that when I am in conflict over a painting’s direction. Then I put in some circles. The balance seems off there, I need to glaze that big one down a LOT, even though I did a removal procedure after I painted it in so it’s not even as strong as initially applied. I like the smaller circles in the lower left, but that area muddied up a bit in the removal process (black always does that). And now I am in quandary over the little horizontal strip applied in the lower center portion. I got the idea to put something there from removing some of the masking tape from an earlier session. I re-use my masking tape sometimes, and this piece of tape had masked some other painting while I was using red. I just tacked the tape in the lower area of the painting, just to get it out of the way while I toiled at some other task but when I stepped back and looked at the painting the strip of red seemed just what the painting needed, a little unexpected color. So last night, remembering that little observation, I actually masked off a small area and applied the red. But now I am not so sure. I may have to paint over a bit, we’ll see what happens tonight!