yes, really

 So, did I mention how I often do 3 or 4 versions of the same thing before I get to something I'm happy with?  Did I mention I do them on top of each other...I just keep going until the painting in front of me is close to the vision I had in my head.  It means I go through a lot of paint, and that I often don't have a record of the different paintings underneath (unless I photograph each stage, but I'm usually too covered in paint and frustrated!) So this is where my painting is now (sorry for the blurry photo)

Just for comparison's sake here's the photo I took of it last week.  I wasn't happy with it at this stage.  While there were elements that I really liked, it was just too "literal" for me.  I really wanted something more abstracted and expressionistic.  This somehow reminds me of those hideously kitch paintings from the 60s and 70s.

And here's where it started...

I initially had intended for this painting to include ships like the ones I see from my friend Ruth's apartment:

This is where the inspiration came from, but I just couldn't make it work with what I'd done already, and I wanted to push it further into the abstract.  There may have to be another one at some stage.  I mean look at that view!  That's Indonesia over there.

I absolutely adore abstract landscapes.  My pins on pinterest  lately have included lots of abstract landscapes, but it's something that I really struggle to produce on my own.  I think it is partly scale.  I much prefer to paint big canvases and have done some quite abstract work in the past on big canvases.  But when it comes to taking a picture in my head (I tried not to look at the picture too much as I think that hinders the abstraction...not sure if I'm right about that....) and turning it into an abstract representation it is definitely something that I find a challenge.

As it is, I'm still not really sure about it.  I love the texture, but once again I think it works better on a bigger scale.  I fluctuated from palette knife to paint brush and back again...there is something I love about laying on paint with a palette knife: perhaps it is that it frees me up from being too literal.

So jump in.  Did I ruin it? Do you prefer version #2? Is it hideous? Does it work?
In the last photo you can see that my easel probably wasn't straight while I was painting.  At some point I'd love a proper easel, or a donkey like we used to have at school.