I am enjoying the changes on the merits of visual interest alone. I feel that a painting is successful partly when ones eyes can wander the "landscape" of the painting. Ideally without being too bland or too jarring. That might be more opinion that fact. I feel the need to point out that these are not just choices of mode and style. Part of the changes I have made, been making, are an attempt to break down what I paint/draw in regards to what I see.
I have long known but often do not exercise the knowledge that it is often a more successful strategy to not be specific in your expression. That is to say, getting bogged down in the details is a way to make a bad picture. There are times and places where you want to lot of small bits of information but usually that can be chaotic and have the opposite effect in the descriptive process.
It is a mistake to think direct expression is more "true" than suggestive notes and styles. As mentioned in the previous post, I believe that the two paintings I started with were ones I never felt in control of. This in part was due to a desire for "faithful" translation. However a busy skyline of a shipyard seems more accessible with a generalized or ... flattened busyness of form and color. Discounting the difference in tones of the before after pics, I would say that this is a god example of idea. Not that there aren't other ways to correct a perceived problem.

Finally, I occurred to me that in many ways the wasp picture were another attempt to break down picture and form. It was certainly trying to use a looser gestural style to better find the "character" of the patterns found.
pax
r,