Impact of retirement on my paintings

A year and a half ago I retired from the public service.  During most of that career I worked more than 60 hours a week. 

While I was working I dedicated much of my free time during the weekend to my watercolours.  Originally I produced one painting a week, then progressed to two small paintings a weekend.  Two to three years ago, as my skills improved, I started taking on more challenging paintings.  At that time, I would spend 2-3 weeks on a single painting.  

Since retirement, when I  stopped rushing from one meeting to the next to the next, the sense of time changed.  As a result my entire life slowed down and I have progressively attempted more and more challenging paintings without setting a deadline for me to complete them.

This means that I spend more time choosing my next project, more time planning how to approach it, more time executing the painting and most importantly, more time stepping back to assess how the painting is progressing so that I can adjust the next steps.

Two weeks ago, I started the most complicated painting of my life. Prior to that, I had spent weeks  studying the reference photo.  From a painting distance (1 - 1.5 feet away) it looks like an abstract and impossible to detect what it is I'm painting. Therefore, it's challenging to adjust values and create harmony.   At this time, I'm not sure if it is completed or not. It has been sitting on my easel for the past 5 days.

Any suggestions?

Have a great week.

Danielle