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Now that I've been painting for over 20 years, I can openly acknowledge that although I have accumulated a wealth of knowledge I only really know two things.

One: No painting will ever end up the way I intend when I begin it. 

Two: Just because I am not pleased with a painting doesn't mean that other people won't be.

As to the first, well, I think I have developed into the kind of painter who enjoys finding out what will happen and is therefore all too willing to abandon the original plan to see where the paint leads me. With respect to the second...

Sometime during my first year of painting I became so frustrated with how much everything was going wrong with a painting that I just took my biggest brush and wrote "RATS" over the whole thing. My wife, astounded, asked why in the world I would do such a thing. I could not articulate why, so I just said something to the effect of "because it sucks!" Of course, when I took another look at it a year or two later, I saw that it didn't totally suck and could have become a keeper if I'd have just calmed down.

This painting depicts a weeping cherry tree a couple of doors down across the street. For about a week every spring it is the prettiest tree in the neighborhood. It has a funny history because the person who planted it thought it was a dwarf variety that would grow no higher than 12 to 15 feet. She was flabbergasted when just a few years later it had grow at least 35 feet tall.

So I painted it. No surprise, the painting did not end up anything close to what I intended when I began it. I was going for light, airy, and whimsical. I think I came up with something closer to a child's fingerpainting. 

No surprise either: just because I'm lukewarm towards the finished product does not mean that others will agree. A couple times a month I send around what I call a Friday Lunchtime Painting to a few dozen coworkers. The feedback on this one was quite positive and nobody took me up on my implied free offer to agree with me that it shouldn't be considered A-List. Of course, people tend to be polite. 

But if you don't think highly of this one, it's okay. I'm on the fence myself.