Loose vs. Tighter

Just some morning musings on painting styles. At the workshop last week, we talked about wanting to get looser in our painting and I mentioned that sometimes I think I should be tighter. My teacher Marsha picked up on this comment and has some ideas to help me tighten up. I think that I actually can paint 'tight' if I want to but I seem to enjoy the freedom of being loose....So I looked through the work I have done this past year and found this one of the buoys that is tight for me...It took me several hours which is a long time for me to spend on a painting. I enjoyed it because it was like a jigsaw puzzle...but I don't think I'd like to get any tighter than this. I think my goal is actually to do paintings that are polished and professional looking...I look through the art magazines and see paintings that are done in a loose style but yet they are in galleries and in magazines and win awards...I want my work to get to that level. That's my goal.