Nothing to see (again)

I painted over 'The Shore Road, Trumet' today,  decided it wasn't good enough. And I painted it over and over again without getting anything that was good enough.  I'm learning to paint by painting, so even if I don't end up with anything, I've probably learned something -- though goodness knows what...

Good enough is a tricky concept. By definition not all pieces are masterpieces, so what then is good enough to keep? I'm happier with some pieces more than others, but that appreciation can -- and really should -- change as time goes by.  I was looking at some pieces of mine from a year or two ago, and I wasn't impressed. Then too, my taste in my paintings are different than most viewers.  Case in point, last week's paintings:

Sunset Along the Wellmouth Road  141
The Road to Mayport  57
Woods Along the Harniss Road 32
Field in Fog 22

The number behind the title is the number of viewers each painting had last week on my deviantART site. Assuming that people don't click to see a bigger version just to sneer at it, the number of views should roughly reflect the piece's appeal. Now, how the piece photographs, and the fact that it glows on the computer monitor could have some effect on a piece's appeal. Field in Fog, for instance did not photograph well and is a lot more solid looking in the flesh, while Sunset Along the Wellmouth Road probably is a bit less drab  on the  computer screen than the original. However, the fact is that the ranking by views is exactly the opposite of how I would rank those paintings, with Field in Fog being my favorite, and Sunset, my least by an equally long margin. This is more often the norm than the exception.  So it seems that even if I'm not impressed, others might be, and that too should be taken into consideration.

So what is 'good enough'?  Right now I'd have to say that the painting should reflect the way I want to paint today, and beyond that its fate hangs on my whim.