Red Beads by Dabs
This is the result of many things.
I was too tired the other night to paint, but was compelled to do so. The three paintings I was working were just not coming together. I should have gone to bed instead of painting, but… well you know.
I had grand visions for this one… and it started out bigger. I had drawn in the whole brush holder and painted it with the beads and the horsehair key chain. However, I could not get the brush holder’s glow or reflections… nor were the colors coming out. I stopped a couple of hours later and decided it was a bust.
The next day I decided to see if I could save it. I felt it would be better cropped (as I originally wondered) so that the focus would be on the beads. I cropped… added some darks…. lifted a lot of color from the brush holder and kept tweaking until I got this. It is much better than before! The moral is keep going. You might have to crop or paint over… or lift paint off, but you won’t know what treasure might be there until you try. Let it sit for a day, a week or a year even. 
Now it probably measures 5 x 5 inch and fits in the card holder well. I am done with this one, but I do want to paint these subjects again!
I like the contrasts of color in this! You are right. If the original idea doesn’t work a crop might help. Nicely done!