Sometimes there is "Magic in the Oops!

Oops, That Doesn’t Look Right!
At some point you will get it wrong, the composition, colour mix, perspective, or you just got carried away with your brush stroke…something. Abtract or Realistic, there are times while you are painting, that it dawns on you, what you’ve been working on is just not getting better but progressively worse. It's lost something, it needs something, "something" isn't right, in fact it's "wrong".  This is a crucial moment. I call it the dual moment of: “I can’t give up on it now” moment, and the “this painting sucks,” moment.  All that time and effort, expense of canvas and paint starts to pull us emotionally, and if we aren't aware of that pull, we may enter that place of "no return".  So what do you do now? Working in acylics is often about time, wait a bit and you can just paint over it. But, is this really the best thing to do? Sometimes. There are really good reasons that you might not want to do this just yet. Before you decide to listen to that energy telling you to either get radical or just "paint it over", (and I’ve done both), I find the best thing is to just STOP, take a breather, not just a cup of tea breather, but let it sit off the side breather. This is a very tough thing to do and in that moment you wish to "fix it".
It helps to have a strategy when this hits, a kind of list of steps or progessions to determine what is the next step....these are mine:

• I Stand Back...simple, but sometimes we don't and we need to.
• Go over the process, especially if you’ve used a new product. Retest Product…you may not have understood the product and may need to retest the product
• Observe with new eyes ie: I Squint, I Photograph it, I turn it upside down...each of these allows you better sense of contrast, composition, where is the focal point, where do my eyes get "stuck", colour, balance, etc...
• I literally put it off to the side and take a long break from it so your eyes roam differently when you return to it. This seems to break that initial energy you are connected with it and you just see it differently.  You have fresh eyes.
• Embrase the "Magic in the Oops!"... mistakes can be wonderful resources. If we move to quickly to cover the canvas again, or scrub out something we feel doesn't work,  we may not only miss a useful opportunity to see it from another perspective, but we may also erase something that could bring new energy or focus to the work. Ive found some of my initial perceived "oops" to be the magical moment of transition to something wonderful. 

I have found these mistakes a powerful means to progress as an artist, you may too, so learn to embrace those "oops", you just may find a little magic in them!