Back on the couch

Sometimes work gets abandoned for a variety of reasons: It is just not working for whatever reason, the ability or idea is just not there yet, or it just plain sucks.
This painting was one such piece, stuck in the corner, considered done and gone. It's been around since 2008 and lately it has been catching my eye as something I could tweak into a good picture. I started to think it has some possibilities. After painting on it for a few hours, 3 1/2 years later, I was starting to like it.

Awaiting Spring (study), oil on panel, 11x14, © copyright Richard Luschek 2012

I remember I had taken some reference photos of the model just to check out some different poses. I did this painting from life in about 4 hours so it was pretty rough and had some unfinished areas. So I printed the photo and used it to try to fix the design and refine some of the details while retaining that fresh look of the visual impression.
Interestingly, now that I post it, I see at least one compositional problem, but let's pretend I didn't notice.

Just for reference I will show you the old version before I reworked it.

Awaiting a painter to make this not suck, oil on panel, 11x14, © copyright Richard Luschek 2008