I think this will be the last version of this one for a while.

There were several things that bothered me as I progressed. One of the difficulties with using a unifying factor like shape is the need you feel to carry it through, speaking personally. That dark area to the left in previous images and the choppy darkness of the table nagged at the consistency of other parts. I don't mind having things fitting 'sloppily' normally. In this instance the incongruity with the completeness of a circle made me uneasy. So I emphasized the plates, by putting 'placemats' below them like picture frames and by making them larger and sometimes rounder. The table surface was given a brighter turn with lighter wood from the center. And to tackle the exterior parts I dug out a picture of the colour wheel, that seemingly useless item they showed you at school to 'explain' colour relationships but only confused you further, a guide book with the words extracted so you didn't really know what you were looking at. After several arrangements I forced myself to stop after the emphatic red behind Ingrid on the left.

Don't be fooled. It isn't some clever colour experiment relating the wheel to a scene of life. It's a way to brighten up the picture in a way that makes sense to me so I can lay it down to rest.

Merry Christmas, especially to the Armellini- Ale, Ingrid, Enzo and Maria Paula.

The previous versions of the image are shown below.