One really big plus of acrylic paint for me is that I can wash off mistakes if I catch them quickly enough. And if not, I can paint on top. I have come to accept that I am someone who makes a mess. Until a few years ago, I disliked this aspect of myself and tried hard either to 'get it right' or spent so long thinking about alternatives that I'd wear myself, and others, out.
detail from work in progress, acrylic on canvas. Lynne Cameron
Then I realised that making a mess is not a problem; it is human. And that what matters is how I sort the mess I make. Often it is in sorting out and clearing up the mess that something good happens.
So this painting sat around for months, claiming to be a landscape, but not doing it well enough:
It was a mess. Then it was turned on its side, mostly covered with a layer of stone-coloured paint and became something quite different.
work in progress, 1 May 2017. Lynne Cameron.
It's still not finished - there's a mess to be sorted at the bottom right and I have a feeling that one of those 'blooms' may need to hide behind a veil of some sort. But it is on its way. And it needed the mess to happen first.