Failure

I'll be honest... this feels like a failed experiment. I wanted to do a portrait layout instead of the usual landscape and something about it just does not work for me... Almost like its too simple... There is an ok progression of depth but some part of me feels like I should have pushed it further. I suppose at some point I can always go back into it and fuck it up and build it back up. I do love that process of creative destruction. I wish that I could pin down what it is exactly that I don't like about this one but it eludes me... which is why I probably should work into it again at some point. Failure is part of the process though, I had a family friend tell me that one of his painter friends burns something like 30 or 40 canvases at the end of every year in this cathartic ritual of letting go of all the paintings she loathes.

I personally would rather just paint over the ones I hate... I like that process as much as anything and I guess thats why I hang on to pieces like this... There are lessons in this, I mean its got some good pattern and rhythm in parts, its just that as a whole it fails. I normally add the "windows" to look like they're integrated into the buildings in at least one part of the painting and in this one I did not follow that idea, so maybe thats part of what I don't like... I still think the idea could be successful though, its just not working on this particular one... I feel like its missing another layer or something... or maybe I need to do nothing but windows, layers upon layers of windows... thats something I've been mulling over, I'm just not sure how I want to set it up quite yet... or if pen is the right medium for it...