Canvas Destruction: Las Vegas

This is what happens when you have an unfinished canvas sitting in the basement for years, and eventually you kinda snap.

It originally began as a traditional acrylic based on [link] but I got to a certain point and pretty much hit a wall as some desire to create a cool painting combined with analysis paralysis and frustration to get me no further.

On Saturday I got tired of it sitting there untouched for years and resolved to wreck the painting in high style, morphing a bad tourist snapshot into a chaotic mess of colors and forms. All the major elements in the photo are there - moon, tower, buildings, bridge tree, entrance, electrical poles, but it's more a painting of frustration than it is a street scene. No brushwork, no knives, just raw application - the smear in the bottom right hand corner was after I realized I was trying to get some detail to look right, said "no, not that again" and ran my hand across whatever I was working on. I had the sense to only use my lousy acrylics for the more messy blending, thus only destroying one or two tubes of paint in the process.

I can't say it's pretty, but it was needed. Sadly the effect is kinda muted in photos - the thing is practically a sculpture the paint's so thick.

22"x28", acrylic and frustration on canvas