Considering the time I spent yesterday layering in more color in the background, this does not look as different as I thought it would from the previous shot. Hmmmm...I think this is going to take much longer than I had hoped.
I'm trying to capture the soft, out of focus look of the background in my reference images. I find myself zooming in to try to dissect the look of the sparkly fuzzy light and then painstakingly. with tiny strokes try to translate it to my paper. Of course working in this sort of minute detail means that I would probably finish this piece sometime in 2015. So I have to keep reminding myself to back off and loosen up, just squint my eyes and try to draw in the colorful masses and shapes in broad strokes. I suspect the right approach lies somewhere between these two extremes, I'll just have to find it.