As a novice artist I can attest to the fact that a painting that looks easily rendered is not often the case. So I am frequently led to biting off more than I can chew in attempting to bring a landscape to life from a photograph. Such was the case with this painting which was to be a vivid abstract field of Spring flowers. I eagerly broke into the tube of green gold paint which I had just added to my color arsenal and began painting loose grasses with pops of color. I quickly became disenchanted with the design and in my frustration switched gears to head into a more abstract realm by obliterating all marks on the canvas. As I moved the gooey paints that were half dry around the canvas with a palette knife adding more green gold I decided it would now be a limited palette painting with mainly green gold, purple and of course white to adjust the values. Before my eyes a dense forest began to emerge with the dawning light. I was captivated by the promise of a new day, of starting fresh. Such a romantic notion brought forth by the knife. I was totally in the creative zone freely using everything at my fingertips. I was just loving what was happening and so delighted that I had switched gears!

Then as I paused, I saw it. The fallen tree crafted of all that gooey paint had landed right smack dab in the middle of the painting, and worse yet the magical light streaming down on that hillside trail was creating an X with the tree! I was mortified! I had insidiously broken the cardinal rule of composition to avoid the center as a focal point of a painting! I know better, I really do. But I got caught up in the process, never stepped back to examine the painting at a distance and blindly painted my way into the graveyard. It will not go to the recycle pile though, and hopefully I will not have to repeat this lesson in the future. I will hang it in my studio and admire it for the magic that occurred in that emerging dawn in the forest and remember why I paint, and that failure can be beautiful.