A Long Time Coming

Another piece I "finished" about five years ago in the dorms, exhibited a few times, has spent the last three years in the garage back in MN, and finally has gotten the finishing touches it deserved, or at least the start of the finishing touches...

I can't say exactly what i was thinkng the first time through, but it's pretty interesting how taking a piece away for so long helps you to see what's wrong with it more clearly. How you can immediately say  "there's work still to do" when, at one point, you were completely happy with how it turned out. I suppose in comparing the two, I would say that the first version simply looks...unfinished. It looks like an underpainting, a generalization....something I was too eager to finish.

Anyways, it's well on it's way finally,  and it's pretty uplifting to know that some of my older work carries the same energy, color and composition that, five years later, I am still working with...It's a definite plus to pull a piece from the pile like this and not have to completely paint over it, but to simply see it as a good starting point...way to go 18 year old me.