Redemption

In high school I applied for GSA (Governor's School for the Arts), which required me to create a portfolio of my work.  One of the portfolio requirements was a landscape from life.  Outside my backdoor most mornings, behind a cool tree, was an amazing sunrise, and I wanted to capture this moment.  

I rose at 5:00, gathered my paints, and headed for the great outdoors.  I was a little early so I retreated inside to grab some breakfast then it was back to work.  The sun delivered a beautiful site that morning and I jacked it all up.  My finished product looked like a mud puddle with a rainbow inside.  

The judges never said anything negative about my landscape, but obviously they had distaste for my work because I was not accepted.  No hard feelings, I know I did not deserve the scholarship.

    

Several years later I came home for the holidays to find this awful example of my work, framed and hanging in my parents' house.  My mom still uses this painting with her decor. 

Last year I created this drawing to redeem my futile attempt from the past.  This image is intended to be abstract; it represents a sunset instead of a sunrise and focuses more on the tree. The real tree looks nothing like this.  I "borrowed" this tree from an image I found in a Google image search.