Unsuccessful but Significant

Recent Revelations: An artist who posts photos of a painting in progress should either be confident of a victorious outcome or be willing to lose face when the stupid thing bombs.

Apparently, I'm going for the latter. The far left berry on my "Raspberries" painting is all wrong, and in my attempts to improve its discomfort on the page, I've darkened it far too much. Today, I decided that I might as well scrub it down and try to redo it, because I'll just have to crop it out otherwise. I blotted off the surface pigment, though there is a lot of color saturated into the paper, and I've glazed it with a salmon color that is more true to the actual shade of semi-ripeness that I'm going for. Once that has dried, I will define again the shadows and then I'll probably cut that part right out...but you can't say I didn't give it all I had!!

I'm feeling a little less than professional right now, a little exposed and embarassed by the publicity of painting and failing. If it was just between me and the painting, I would be pretty satisfied with myself. I've learned a lot through this project, and most of the painting is really beautiful - I love every bit of the background, it has a depth and richness that I could just fall into. So...maybe my revelation should read more like:

Every painting, whether success or failure, complete or incomplete, holds significance in the part it plays in the artist's creative journey.