This piece began New Years Eve.
An aside on my current view of that holiday. I barely celebrate it. The last couple years I've been more inclined to do something a bit mellow and be in bed far before the change of year.
That said, this last NYE I was at home and started painting while drinking some Dry Fly Vodka, http://www.dryflydistilling.com/vodka/ (personal preference) So I began what was going to be a self portrait. When I stumbled away from it I was digging the direction the thing was going. Then I started to work it some more a couple days later, and I began to hate it. Worked on it again, hated it more. I began messing with it, doing things like sewing together parts of the canvas, beginning to like where this is going. Then one day I took it into the driveway, dumped rubbing alcohol on it and lit it on fire. Surprising to see how hard it is burn a canvas. Now I'm starting to like this one, so what better way to improve it than to encase the canvas in resin. A couple pours later the canvas is in a thin shell of clear resin that has some cool looking holes, rips and tears. Sure it's kind of heavy now, but it looks much better. I'd even say I l like how it turned out.
The moral of the story is when you don't like the direction a piece is going keep pushing it, messing with it until it's good and done.