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One evening a few months ago we went out with some friends to celebrate a birthday (not mine). On the way to the restaurant, stopped at an intersection, we looked to the right at the Richmond city skyline to see an absolutely amazing vision of evening sunlight exploding over the tops of the clouds which had just moments ago had threatened to rain on us. I was riding shotgun and was able to power down the window and capture a single photo with my phone before the light turned. What I especially liked was that the source of the light seemed to be coming from just above the Madison building, where I work for the Virginia Department of Health (it's not the tall building - that one's the Monroe).

I knew that, one day, I'd paint it.

So I did, starting with a full sheet of watercolor paper. I had fun, but was inattentive and forgetful and foolishly tried to correct every mistake with more and more paint. This can work with oils, but is usually a recipe for creating a watercolor painting that looks like an overworked chalk drawing.

The first mistake - before the too much paint - was actually trying to capture the entire skyline that I had photographed. I was pleased that the tall Monroe building was off center and would make for good composition, utterly missing the reality that the light post bisects the image, one of the no-nos of all no-nos.

I hated the way it turned out. Hated it. Was spitting mad at myself. Ginger, a fellow artist, pointed out that if I removed the right third of the painting with scissors (one of the best advantages of watercolor over painting on canvas) then the bad composition would be gone and the painting would work much better, making the overworked effect much less noticeable. She was right, but I was still so mad at myself for making so many mistakes when I seriously do know better, that I opted instead for an experiment. I'd always wanted to try this.

When I got home that night, it was pouring the kind of rain that saturates you to the skin before you can even get out of the car and close the door. My experiment was to lay the overworked painting in the driveway and leave it there all night long in the rain.

In. The. Pouring. Rain.

Well, the experiment washed about seventeen pounds of dried paint off the paper and turned the dark overworked chalk drawing looking painting into a light overworked chalk drawing looking painting. Also, I'm pretty sure that a squirrel pooped on it, and I am not making that up.  

When I went back to work the following week, I worked slowly and carefully, but the damage had already been done. It was okay, and I did remove the right third to improve the composition, but it is definitely more of a failed experiment than a well executed painting by somebody who usually knows what he's doing.

So I did what I often do with the crappy ones - I Pollacked it. Just loaded brush after brush with different colors of paint and flung it at the painting with glee.  Which is what you see.

The majority of you reading this are probably not painters and it is you that the title of this blog post seeks. Because I really am curious. This painting is a failure. To me anyway. But is it interesting?