For some of us, resolving a painting is more difficult then it should be. Once started, I am not able to see what I am doing with a clean mind. There are elements that I fall in love with a try to work around them, but never seem to get the entire painting to work. Recently I discovered that a painting that was testing my identity as an artist (another way saying, gave me great doubts about my ability) only needed for my scrape out the one thing that I thought was working for me, in order for the the rest of the painting to come alive.

Occasionally or almost always, the paintings become overworked. Knowing when to stop is a good thing. I have tried all of the little tricks you can use to play with your mind, like hiding the painting in a closet for a week, the black mirror, turning it upside down etc. Anybody have any other ideas?