Leaving work to 'breathe' for a while highlights any problems

When I think I've finished a piece of work it goes up on my studio wall, or sometimes I hang it in the house.  This lets the piece breathe for a while and it gives me the opportunity to make sure that it really works.  Even pieces that I feel are finished are subject to this 'breathing space' and in some cases I have actually gone back to them some months later.

This is a short blog to show you the transitions that took place on one of the paintings in my Mountains series.  The first image is what I had when I first hung the piece on the wall.  I quickly felt that it wasn't working and actually left it for about a month.  The recent snow on the peak of the mountain I was painting helped to etch it's details more clearly (it is right opposite my studio, but across the other side of a valley). I wasn't after photo realism,  I wanted to capture the drama of these mountains in my own way.  In the middle picture you can see I had given the peak itself much more detail, but I was floundering for a while with the foreground and in the last picture you can see how I have now resolved it.