New Painting- "Sunbathers"

Here's my latest painting. I've been experimenting a bit with flattening the backgrounds instead of filling them with detail. I have a real tendency to overwork things, so it's been fun. I'm not totally sure about the finished look yet... For this image, I wanted to bring the ochre fro

m the bottom of the picture instead of the top, and this image looking down at the sand workedperfectly. It also forced me to work on much larger figures than previously. I took a few nights off to work on my May paper at the halfway point of the piece. Since it's been a cool spring, the cold basement were I work really accelerated (or froze) the drying of my paint, so I had to rework almost the entire picture. I ended up spending

 much more time that I should have on it, and I also found myself blending a lot more. Up close, it's much more meticulous. Somehow I need to find the balance between efficient working and interesting brushstroke. Comments appreciated-