Work More (or less) in Progress

My friend Alicia gave me a 2x4 foot canvas last month and asked me to paint something for her newly relocated framing and art gallery, a placed called Raven's Wish.  Even though an idea appeared in my brain almost instantly, getting the show on the road has been slow going.  The list of reasons/excuses includes these:

First, I just have never worked this big before.  My studio is a long narrow space under the eaves of our 1939 Cape Cod, furnished with a "rummage sale" style folding table that has shelving, lights, and miscellaneous jars of brushes taking up part of the real estate.  This canvas does not fit on that work surface, so instead the canvas currently resides on the dining room table downstairs, where the light is better and it is cooler.  Usually.  Right now the AC is out.

Also, I tend to prepare too much.  I collected reference photos of ravens.  I read entire books about ravens.  I drew zillions of ravens trying to figure them out visually.  I made 12x12 inch raven drawings and arranged them on the gessoed canvas, then rearranged them.

Right now I am at the point where I am nervous about how to continue.  Should I add more collage material?  What color (or colors) should the background squares be? I'm working in acrylic paint, so I can redo what I don't like, but I don't want to totally wipe out the text and maps bits I have already added to the image.  I rather like what's there and don't want to make it worse.  But I feel compelled to continue.

So - I guess I will run off the image on paper and play with different colored backgrounds in that safe format.  Enough procrastinating.