In this final painting session, I spent a lot of time staring at the canvas, deciding what it needed in order to call it finished and send it off to my client. Most of the steps I took were small ones: I added a line or two in order to break up a too-large block of color. I extended a color when I thought it needed to be more prominent.
There was still too much brightness near the top and bottom, so I added more dark lines to block out more of it. I added a few more white lines where I thought the painting needed them.
What I was looking for was not to reproduce the original painting my client liked, but to get the same feel and movement. In order to get the spontaneity of the original, I had to paint this one freely, and that meant it would never match the original too closely.
Finally, the painting looked ready to me. I sent a photo to the client, she said it looked great, and I shipped it.
