I spent a couple of hours on a painting, and it was a failure. First painting in 6 months, so it's no surprise, and I've learnt how to not let these failures bother me. I wasn't going to upload it but I started thinking that this might be interesting to someone. Here it is

It's not the worst one I've ever done, but it is a failure.
I tend to paint similar things repeatedly and take the same photo again and again, which is tied into something that happens either when I'm hiking somewhere beautiful or just looking out the window

There is this moment where all I can think is "this is it." I don't know what "it" is, but this is it. And I kinda space out for a bit and then come back.

I've spoken before about aphantasia but it means that when I turn my back on the view, I can't revisit it. With people, I can't picture someones face, but I know them when I see them.
So when I paint landscapes, I paint until I feel that connection.
Until I feel "this is it"

This is also why the art I love is, if not "realistic", at least naturalistic enough to feel recognisable. I do like stylised stuff, and I like that people take art in interesting new directions, and it looks cool, but I tend not to *feel* it so much.

This BG from Only Yesterday is so beautiful it actually hurts me a little bit. Not a pain of jealousy about the skill of the artist, but some inexplicable ache. Like nostalgia for an imaginary memory.
Whereas something like MindGame is great but I don't connect as much.

This is not all or nothing. It's not as if I only like one thing, but I'm just talking here about the stuff that I connect with most strongly and my own work.
It's no accident that on The Breadwinner, I was the art director for the stuff on the left and not the right.

Back to the painting that started this thread; I just don't feel it.
Some paintings can be worked on until I get there, but some can't. I think with this one, there's a subtlety to what I was aiming for that I just overshot, and adding more paint won't help.
Just try again

I feel like I should stress, considering a couple of the replies; I don't think this is a shit painting. It's just not... it.
It's not a criticism, really. There's no anger in it. I just missed some nebulous mark and now need to figure out why for the next painting.

I was also going to point out that I don't think I'd have been able to understand all this without reading about Zen Buddhism, and haiku, and the haikus themselves this past couple of years.
But the truth is I could probably just have said "painting is like playing Guess Who?"