Working Out My Approach to Composition

title: Study of White
oil paint on 8 by 10 inch board

When planning out paintings in detail, beyond basic compositions, the results have left me less than satisfied.  The control freak approach to composition works for some people.  Personally, I think a painting will tell me where it wants to go while I'm holding the brush or knife.  (I'm not going to stop trying the control freak approach.  I change over time and it might start working for me.)

The big question for me is when to stop painting.  My goal in painting is simplicity.  

A professor once told me simplicity, simplicity, simplicity was the key to design.   He was not talking about paintings, but the advice seems to work for me, or at least get interesting results.

Currently, simplicity is achieved by a sort of process of elimination.  Starting with thin, transparent layers of paints a complex, over done collection of shapes are created. As more layers are added the composition emerges as parts of the painting fade into a blurred background.  

Achieving simplicity is difficult for those of us who tend to over think or over do paintings and other projects.   This is a personal struggle against the desire to keep adding one more detail, one more brushstroke, one more anything.  It destroys the feel of  spontaneity that I seek in paintings.