I was born in the middle of the 1940's on a farm in Illinois. I played outside a lot as a young boy and often watched my mother hanging out clothes to dry on the line out in the yard not all that far from where I was playing. I always wondered how she knew that it wasn't going to rain before the clothes dried. I never knew for sure, but it was obvious that Mom and Dad often spoke of the weather. I assumed that they collectively figured out that this day was going to be dry and good for field work and also for washing clothes. They were correct most of the time, but not always! I thought of this childhood story when I took a photograph of clothes hanging on an old fashion outside clothesline while we were visiting the historic Swedish farming village of Bishop Hill, Illinois. I wanted to show this scene as though looking through a rain streaked window. This colored pencil painting is based on this photograph and is entitled "Washed Out". The piece is done on Grafix drafting film using Farber-Castell polychromos and some Prismacolor Premier pencils. The size of the artwork is 11 X 14 inches.