Update

Still working on the giant commission painting. What a challenge. Although I loved the original, the customer felt it was too subtle and light. I made some new sketches of it that involved darkening the original composition by painting darker colors over the existing piece. We finally agreed on one. But although it worked well as a sketch, it just did not work at all on the canvas.

One night I painted over it with a beautiful gray I mixed. This was to be the new background color. But in the morning light the beautiful gray color looked mauve. So I let it dry a for a few days and painted over it again and found in it a new composition. Now it's a completely different painting and nothing at all like what the customer asked for. But at this point my goal is to be able to rescue it all as a painting.

In the end I had to separate myself from everything the customer said he liked and wanted and let the painting develop without imposing a plan on it. I like the way it is turning out. That doesn't mean he will. We'll see...