Evolution (Resurrection?) of a Work; "Round Bales- Cluster of Four"

Sometimes when a piece is done, it isn't really done.  I 'completed' this painting, 'Round Bales- Cluster of Four,' about seven years ago, and framed it.  But every time I looked at it, something just didn't feel quite right to me about it.  So earlier this month, I took it out of the frame, and dramatically reworked it, and finally, I'm fully satisfied with it.

"Round Bales - Cluster of Four"  final version, 2010

As a point of comparison, here is how the painting almost looked when I first framed it in 2003.  Several things didn't feel quite right to me about that earlier version:

As originally framed in 2003

I realized there wasn't enough value contrast, and the colors were pretty blah.  I remember being pretty tired when I was last working on it, and must not have noticed those things.  So I took it out of the frame, and decided to see what I could do about the short comings I'd noticed, and either 'make it or break it.'   I stroked in some bright colors, and then began to like the animated marks, which seemed to come to life.  I also realized the focusing in on the bales and cropping out some of the sky made the composition stronger.  In the original version, there wasn't enough to keep the eye circulating throughout the piece, so my eye tended to either just focus on the bales in the center of the painting  or wander off the top of the paper.  By cropping in from all sides, I emphasized the clustering of the three bales close together, and the one bale off in the distance.  They now seem to relate better to each other.  And now I really like the painting.

Initial start of the painting

This is what the painting initially looked like when I came back from the field where I first sketched it.  This is hard pastels, with a wash to blend the colors a bit.  I then reworked (and reworked) the painting in my studio.

After filling in more details

At this stage, I backed up, removing pastel from the trees and foreground, because I wasn't happy with the placement of the darks.  Taking them out, I hoped to see them in a new way.

Pastel removed, softening trees and foreground

I added the diagonal line in the left foreground to try to counter balance the strong diagonal of the hedgerow, but this ended up seeming like a 'blocked' area, too.
 

Reworked again, shortly before 'completing' it the first time

So I ended up softening up most of the darks and added a new dark patch on the left bottom corner (the photo of this 'final' stage is the second photo from the top of this post).  The piece still felt kind of lifeless to me, so I stroked the pastel loosely throughout to animate it, but overall, it still lacked value contrast.  I'm much happier with the reworked version.