One of the things I love about painting is what it teaches about 'wholes and parts'...when a painting is finished it somehow has integrity as a whole, with no extraneous elements. It can be quite a juggling act before it happens, with lots of layers of earlier stages. I often use a folded piece of canvas to generate texture that will create drips. In that way,  something is orchestrated early on, but I don't know what it will be until the painting is finally coming together. That was true of these three recent oils, each one is 50 x 50 cm on wooden support.

This one has been on the go for about three months...it sat to one side while I was focussing on other paintings, but finally it was time to focus. It needed one final yellow tulip, and an extra red admiral crept in too.