A painting should be compelling from a distance and rewarding from closer inspection.

Similarly the subject matter of a painting is a priority at the beginning of a work but becomes increasingly a loose guide for interesting brush patterns and color pairings toward the end. A painting with the wrong priorities will hence be either uncompelling or unrewarding or both.

This image is a loose sketch: finding the subject matter and forming the composition while gambling and testing a color scheme. It has since changed quite dramatically.