The Artist Dilemma : should I stop or should I chance it?

There’s a phrase I come back to constantly in my teaching: process over product. I mean it every time. And yet — looking through old work this week, at canvases I haven’t seen in years — I found myself thinking something I rarely admit out loud.

I wish I had stopped earlier.

Not because the final paintings are failures. Some of them I’m proud of. But tucked inside my files were progress shots I never posted, never shared — in-between moments I passed through on the way to “done.” And looking at them now, I can see what I just couldn’t see then: that some of those paintings were already strong. Meaningful.

The Artist Dilemma 

Every painter knows this feeling, even if they don’t have words for it. You’re working. Something happens on the canvas — could be a colour that fits perfectly, an edge that dissolves just right, a mark that just tunes in. There is tension and adrenaline at once. 
And then comes the question.

What’s beyond this?

This is often a question drenched with adrenaline — because once you step across it, there's no coming back.

The Reality of working with Real Materials

This is the thing digital artists and photographers don’t face in quite the same way. You can’t clone a stage of a painting. You can’t save a version, keep going, and press the go back button if it does not work. 

I’ve pushed paintings and found extraordinary things on the other side of that threshold. I’ve also pushed paintings and watched them losing strength, until they were dead. I have learned from both, but I won’t pretend the feeling of killing your own creation does not sting. It does, a lot.

What the Progress Shots Reveal
I’m sharing some of those never-posted process images here — because I see so much potential in there, and above all, some much to take, even if you are an experienced artist. I keep learning from my own process shots.

Progress shots reveal were creative decisions are taken, in an unfiltered way.
They represent moments of highest possibility. And when you know and compare to the end product, the painting, they reveal an entire new world to you: mostly, I'd say they make the unconscious, conscious.  

The Dilemma Doesn’t Go Away

I’ve been painting for decades. I still face this question with every piece.
That’s the artist’s dilemma: when to stop, and when to chance it.

And I don’t think it ever disappears — unless you stop searching, stop experimenting, and just start rehearsing.
Neither choice is wrong. It probably comes down to your personality.
And maybe, to a bigger question — painting as craft, or painting as discovery?

And the final painting is…

Here it is — the finished piece. And yes, I love it. But if I’m honest, I wish I could have cloned it two or three times along the way.

I’d love to hear from you on this subject — come share your thoughts over on Instagram, or reply directly to this email (learn@rossoart.net)