Painting Process - Aug 2008

So This is my eisle along with my 2 idea sketches that I based the visuals on for this painting. I was pretty excited since I was finally starting after 3 or 4 idea sketches over maybe 3 days
Stage 1 - This is after the first day of painting. It's all pretty blue & light in color. I'd originally wanted most of the color in this piece to be fairly light in tone. I was trying to merge the imagery from my 2 idea sketches. My color choices usually just come about as I paint. I'd accidentally lost my image of Stage 2. It was very bluish green in color, the reds became violet and the yellows were fairly solid but with no hints of orange yet.
Stage 3. I started to really try to bring out the swirl like shapes and the yellowish orange drooping shapes. I was still trying to be pretty light in my application of color but it is starting to darken up. I have the pic positioned differently in stage 1 because @ that time I was seeing the piece that way around. I was actually rotating the piece in every direction while painting it. I've noticed that with practically all of my painting I strive for balance rather than creating a few intentional focal points. The yellowish orange sections seemed to be like dripping lava to me @ this stage with the green swirls being akin to waves of water.
Stage 4 - I was really starting to like the direction that the painting was going in @ this stage. My main problem was that It was getting too green. Green is my favorite color but all the green was starting to flatten the image for much of the painting. On the other hand I liked that the section of the image that I thought looked like lava was starting to remind me of Banyan trees. Banyan trees have these roots that cross & overlap excessively. The different sections droop & hang in interesting ways. They've always interested me. I've always been strangely interested in tree shapes, branches etc. There organization has always interested me. I like that @ this stage I had the beginning of a bit of a foreground & background start to show. The colors also started to get a little more solid.
Stage 5 - I got some suggestions from family & friends. I started to change some of the greens towards a yellow green. I used a blue or blue green to outline & pronounce some shapes. I really started to play with bringing the swirls back out. I found them to be strong graphic shapes. I blended them with the tree like structure that drips downward. I hope that some visual interest of the push & pull variety is created by the swirls that overlap/lay under the tree structure. I started to crate an area behind the tree like structure that seems spherical like a planet. I wanted a slightly muted yellow green to act like a "sky" for the background. The colors in this seemed a bit too dark. Everybody I asked after finishing this stage thought so too.

because blogger didn't let me the 6th & final variant of the painting is going up in the next post above.