Finding Joy and Creative Possibility in Unfinished Work

You’re listening to the Savvy Painter Podcast Episode 345. Hello, hello, welcome to another episode of the Savvy Painter Podcast. I am your host, Antrese Wood, and if you've been listening for a while, welcome back. If you're new here, I am so glad you found me.

Savvy Painter is the podcast for artists who want practical, tactical tips to create a meaningful art practice that is both fulfilling and supports you.

Believe it or not, I still have boxes that I have not unpacked since moving to this new place, going on six months ago now. So I'm just wondering, how many unfinished paintings do you have lying around?

I wanted to share with you how I think about having all these unfinished paintings, because the big question I have for many artists I work with is: What if those unfinished pieces are actually the key to unlocking your next big creative breakthrough?

A lot of artists see unfinished paintings as either something that's on their to-do list, like there's this kind of itch that happens when they see them. Some artists look at unfinished paintings and feel like these are all proof or evidence that there’s something wrong with themselves as artists, or something wrong with their practice.

So I thought we would take this episode and talk about it. As I was going through these boxes of artwork and thinking about unfinished work, I realized that I tend to categorize them into basically three types.

There are pieces that I’ve started but haven’t really developed. There are pieces that are sort of halfway done. And then there are pieces that are mostly done, like maybe they’re 80–90% finished, and I just didn’t take them the whole finish. I know a lot of you have this too. Sometimes it’s just kind of easy, you look at a painting and you’re like, “Yeah… nope,” and you paint over it or gesso over it.

But I thought we could dig into this because I know sometimes there are thoughts, let’s say, about what those unfinished paintings mean about you, or what they mean about your capacity to create a body of work. Sometimes it’s just the simple question of, “What do I do with all of this? And how long should I keep it?”

Let’s say there are those canvases that maybe you’ve started but not developed. The canvas is primed, you’ve slapped some paint on, you have a few marks, maybe there’s this gorgeous burst of color, and then it just stalled out.

Like I said, I’ve been there. I have a sketchbook filled with these, and I absolutely love them. Here's why. I have drawings that I started and never finished, whether that’s in my sketchbook or on a canvas. Maybe I was at a café with my sketchbook, and the person I was drawing got up and walked away.

More recently, it would probably be my dogs deciding they didn’t want to sleep anymore and desperately needed to come lick my face before settling down in an entirely different place with an entirely different pose. Typically, that’s curled up in a tight ball with their backs turned to me, as if they’ve just quiet-quitted their entire modeling career. Which, that’s fair. Maybe they’re bored with it.

But since I’ve been going through these unpacked boxes of work in my garage—and hopefully I’ll get that converted into my studio very, very soon—there are all sorts of unfinished paintings in there. There are boxes filled with little 6x8 and 8x10 plein air paintings that have ideas maybe that I started or quick impressions that didn’t go anywhere else. Sometimes I just wanted to capture something, and I didn’t quite get the result I wanted, so I stopped it there.

Like I said, I kind of have this tendency to mentally divide up these paintings. There’s that phase I just talked about. Then there are the ones where maybe the canvas is covered, I would categorize these as halfway done. Maybe I have an idea blocked in and there are some bits I’ve resolved, but for the most part, it’s a lot of mark-making that I lost interest in pursuing.

Then there are the paintings that I really spent some time on. I took them to a place where the majority might be resolved, but then I just left it there. So that’s how I categorize the different types of unfinished work that I might have. Now let’s dive into why this happens in the first place.

There are external changes that can happen. Maybe the model moved or the lighting changed. The weather changed, clouds came over if we’re talking about plein air painting. I’ve been out there when there’s a complete weather change, or it starts raining, or the wind kicks up, and it’s just not feasible for me to finish that painting. Or maybe I just don’t want to. Which leads into the internal change: losing interest.

Why would I lose interest? Maybe the idea just isn’t something I want to pursue. Maybe the question I had asked of the painting wasn’t that compelling once I got into it. Or maybe the solution I came up with was the stepping stone to something else, and I left it there so I could move on to the next step.

So what that might look like is I’m painting a painting—whether that’s working from a model, let’s say—and I resolve something on there that just gives me an aha moment. And what I want to do, just for speed and efficacy, is to grab another canvas and move right into that direction or that idea that I just got from having painted a little bit on the canvas. Sometimes, it’s simply that, it’s an expediency thing.

So I’m kind of loosely categorizing the "why would we stop on an unfinished painting" into the external factors and the internal factors. Either way, here’s what I think is really important: to just recognize that sometimes you don’t finish paintings, and trusting yourself and having your own back when it comes to the paintings that you haven’t finished.

Many artists feel some sort of shame or guilt when they don’t finish a painting, or they have this idea that there’s some rule somewhere that they have to finish the painting. I want to dive into this, I want to address this, because this might not apply to every single unfinished painting that you have, but it comes up so often. I think it’s important to talk about it because these are the things that can get in your way and block you later on.

A lot of common thoughts that I hear when artists talk about unfinished paintings in a negative way is they talk about, “Oh, all this time that I spent on it,” or “I don’t want to feel like I wasted time.” Sometimes it’s about the materials that they use, so that’s a different category of how we feel about it. There’s this idea that all of the materials that we use have to go to a masterpiece, or a finished painting, or something that’s sellable.

That looks like, “Oh, my god, it was a perfectly good canvas. I don’t want to waste it.” Or “I used up so much paint on that,” or, “I don’t want to waste my paint,” which when we say it out loud, it’s a little bit funny, the idea that having created a painting means that you wasted a canvas or you wasted good paint.

I think the biggest one that comes up really is about “wasting the time” on it. But there’s a lot more that comes up with this. A lot of times, there’s judgment that we place on ourselves about not having finished a piece, something like, “I’m not good enough to finish this,” or “A good enough artist would be able to finish this.”

Just notice the amount of judgment that’s inherent in those kinds of thoughts. These thoughts are not helpful at all. I know that intellectually, you probably recognize that. But one of my philosophies about painting and about creating this practice of ours is that our practice is something that we create. The environment that we create for ourselves in our studios is something that we generate, that we create.

Because it’s something that we generate and we create, then that allows us to be responsible for it. It also allows us to create an environment that we love. So for me, the way that I think about it is I don’t want any part of my painting practice to be forced or cajoled or obligatory. I don’t want to feel like I’m pushing myself in a very negative way.

Forcing myself to finish a painting, to me, is not productive. It’s just creating this environment where I’m working or I’m doing things out of a place that I don’t want to be working or doing things from, namely, force and obligation and things like that.

Part of loving your work is allowing yourself to change your mind and move on. This is something that I think is really, really important, allowing yourself to decide for you, for the artist who creates it, and for the art itself, when it’s time for you to change your mind and move on.

There’s so much that we attach to this. There’s so much language in our culture and in our society about giving up, about quitting, about "only quitters quit," "losers are the ones who quit," things like that that amplify these ideas that if you want to change your mind or if you want to do something different, there’s something wrong with that.

The culture that I want to create in my studio is one of love and abundance. What I mean by that is love for myself, the artist who creates the work, and love of the art itself. Love of the process, love of the craft of painting and all the history that goes with it, and the actual painting that I’m working on.

For me, part of the way that I express that love for myself and love for the art is to honor and respect what’s actually going on versus what I think should go on, or any external ideas about what an artist should or shouldn’t do, these unexamined rules that we follow without even really knowing why, or really understanding if the rules are actually benefiting us. And we can’t understand that if we haven’t examined it.

So that’s a piece of it for me. I think, as artists, it’s something that is incredibly important to develop inside of the studio: that love and respect for both myself, the artist who’s creating it, and the craft of painting.

Just notice if any of those thoughts or ideas are present in your practice in your studio, in your mind as you’re working or when you’re looking at this shelf of unfinished paintings, stacks of paintings in the corner, these ideas of, “All the time that I spent on it, that was such a waste of canvas. Such a waste of paint. I’m not good enough to finish this.” Those are ways that artists tend to use an unfinished painting as almost a weapon against themselves.

Just the entire concept that a good artist wouldn't have all those stacks of unfinished paintings, or that a good artist would be able to finish those paintings. Does any of that sound familiar to you? Just notice and recognize if any of those thoughts or anything like that is showing up for you in your studio when you look at these unfinished paintings that we all have.

So the next question, of course, is: how do we move past that and into the freedom that comes with letting go and releasing it? Because once you're aware of what your thoughts are—about your painting, about your studio practice—you now have options. You now have the ability to change those thoughts, to reframe the way that you think about your practice so that it benefits you and it supports you.

I've been playing with this idea a lot lately, and I even brought it into my sketchbooks. One of the things that I noticed—an unwritten rule or idea that I had that really wasn't serving me—was that once I finished a sketchbook, I couldn't go back and do anything else with it. That once it’s done, it’s done.

But I’ve been having a lot—I mean, a lot—of fun playing in my sketchbook and going back to old sketchbooks, filling in pages or spaces that were undeveloped. That brought me into going into pages that were developed and then revising them, adding new ideas onto them.

Some of the pieces in there—some of the drawings, some of the sketches—I feel like are complete, so I won't touch them. And/or, there are some that just have very significant memories for me, and so those ones, I leave them as a complete thought. Because they are, for me.

There are others that, when I look at them, I'm like, "Ooh, I could play with that some more. Ooh, I could do more on that." And in my sketchbook, I am open to letting all of that happen. I think letting go of this idea that there could be unfinished work is liberating and fun.

So that’s one example, I’m going to give you more about your paintings, but I want to talk about just the power of letting go of the idea that these unfinished paintings are a bad reflection or have any kind of a negative reflection on your art or you as an artist.

Part of loving the art and loving the artist who makes it is allowing yourself to change your mind, to release an idea that’s not working, to let it go so that something new and different can come in, so that you can get to the next idea.

This is what it's about for me. This is one of my philosophies in my own painting practice: the idea of growth and evolution. Like, I hold that as a very high priority, a very high vision that I have for myself.

When I let go of a painting, I’m allowing something new to come in. I’m releasing this idea and letting it go back out into the world. So when you let go of a painting, the important thing, I think, is to just love your reason for doing it.

Do it from a place of love, for the art and for the artist. Let it morph into something new. Part of letting a painting go—or letting an idea go—is trusting yourself. And this is huge. Trust your decision to let it go, or trust your decision to keep working on it.

If you do decide to let it go, trust that whatever it was that you learned from that piece is in your subconscious mind. This is something that a lot of people, I think, worry about, that if they let go of the painting, if they stop working on it, that somehow they’re going to lose that learning. That’s another piece: losing the idea, losing the learning that would have come from that painting.

When you decide that you’re going to let that painting go, it is so important to trust that whatever you learned from that piece is in your subconscious mind. It’s there, and it’s ready for you whenever you want it.

One of the most powerful things about our mind is its ability to remember. A lot of artists are afraid to let go of a painting because they worry they won’t be able to do that again, or they won’t be able to remember that one thing that they did in that painting, or that particular color combination, or that happy accident that happened.

Here’s the thing, our conscious mind has a very limited capacity to hold information. I think that’s part of where this fear comes from. Our unconscious mind, though, is limitless. Every painting, every idea, every color combination, every happy accident, every mark is logged and filed in your unconscious mind.

When you trust that, and when you trust that your body and your mind has what you need and that you can get it back, you can let go of that physical representation of it. You just don’t need it, especially when the meaning that you give to those piles of unfinished paintings is something that’s painful or negative about yourself. That, you definitely want to release and let go of.

So let those paintings free. Let the ideas go so that they can come back to you as something new.

I loved Elizabeth Gilbert’s idea of the muse and her belief that ideas visit us, and if we’re not quite ready, they move on to someone else. Trust in that. Trust that if you didn’t take the idea and use it, then another one will come.

Let go of the idea that there is a limit to your capacity to create. Ideas and visions and possibilities are pure abundance. There is no limit or end to them. In fact, the more we use our creativity, the more abundant it is. The more we lean into possibilities, the more possibilities there are in our work.

You do need to purge and release the ones that you're not wanting to work with. Let them move on. Allow yourself to not want them anymore. Open the space and clear the air for new ideas, new possibilities, new visions to come in.

When you trust in the abundance of your own vision and your own creativity, it just multiplies. Once you give yourself that permission to let go of the paintings, then the next question, I think, answers itself. That next question usually is, "So what do I do with all these unfinished paintings?"

So to give you some ideas, I will share with you what I do with my own unfinished paintings. Some of them I use for exploration and discovery. I will use unfinished work to experiment and to discover new possibilities. What that might look like is I might play a game of "that reminds me of," where I will just riff off of either colors or marks or shapes or compositions and think, like, "How can I use this in a different way, in an unexpected way?" And I just allow my brain to riff off of whatever's already there on the canvas.

Sometimes what I do is I will paint over it completely. I might actually gesso over a painting or I might paint directly on it. Really quickly, on a technical standpoint, if I'm going to gesso over an acrylic-based painting, then I use acrylic gesso. If I have an oil-based painting that I'm going to gesso over, then I use oil-based gesso. So both of those exist, and you can just gesso straight over either one of them.

There are a million ways to explore and discover with these types of paintings. So I might flip the painting over and start something completely new on top. Then I get to have fun with all the colors that might come up or different color combinations that I wouldn't necessarily have thought of.

I might also decide that if it's a paper piece, sometimes I will just cut them up and use them as collage work. I have an accordion file where I just have cut-up pieces of paper or torn paper that I use in my sketchbooks or I use for collage work. There's so much that you can do with these paintings or these unfinished works, if you want to.

So there's free-form play, where you just play with color combinations and shapes. There's my favorite, which is my "what does this remind me of?" which allows me to just go off on tangents. That is a way that I sort of develop my creative thinking, is all the different ways I can play "What does this remind me of?"

And I know some people worry about the texture underneath, so, brushstrokes that are left over from a painting that you are painting over. I also don't really worry about that. I happen to love texture in my painting. So those paintings that I have either gessoed over or I'm painting directly over, if there are marks underneath, I just use that as an impulse to build up texture. So I might play even more with texture on those paintings that have thick brushstrokes that I'm painting over.

That's what I do. Some people like to sand it down. I don't. I'm too lazy for that, I think. I will just gesso over it or paint directly over it, and then I will build off of that texture. So I will play it up even more. I'll work with the texture that's already there.

If I want a canvas that doesn't have texture on it, then I will choose a canvas that doesn't have texture on it. So it's always an option. I just use what I have, and I take what is already there, and I work with it rather than working against it.

So those are some of the typical questions that I get, so I wanted to answer those. Yeah, sometimes there's going to be texture, so I will use that to my advantage, and I will double down on the texture of that painting.

Because I can always get, if there's a painting that I want to work on, if there's an idea that I have where it's important for me to have a fresh canvas, then I'm not going to use that canvas for that painting. It's just so much fun when you loosen up and you allow yourself to play with what's already there. I really, really lean into that.

It's important for me to have fun in my studio. It's important for me to bring light and joy into my work, so I actively create it.

So how do you know when it's time to let go? Let's talk about how to make that decision because I know that's a big one. So my personal framework for deciding is basically: if fear is the reason for stopping, then I'm going to address that fear and continue the painting. Because I don't want to work from a place of fear. So that's a little bit meta, but that's a decision that I have made, is that I don't make decisions from a place of fear.

So if my reason for not finishing a painting is because I'm frustrated, or because there's a piece of it that I don't understand yet, or because I'm afraid that I can't do something, then I'm going to really lean into that and ask myself a lot of questions. I'm going to examine that fear and think about exactly why am I afraid of this? Or what is the thing that is getting in the way that I'm not willing to address or that I'm not willing to feel?

I'm going to oversimplify this just a little bit, but to give you some examples, a lot of times things that maybe an artist doesn't want to address is that they don't have the skill yet to be able to execute the idea that they have. That's one thing. The other thing is not wanting to feel a certain emotion. And the skill thing can bring that up.

Not having the skill that I need to finish a painting just means that I need to practice that. Period. End of story. Anything else that I add on top of that is completely optional. So if I want to add disappointment onto that because I don't have the skill yet, that's an option. I don't know why I would do that because it doesn't serve me. Getting frustrated or dejected or any of those things about the fact that I don't have a skill, it just slows me down, makes me feel like crap, and doesn't solve the problem.

Here's the thing. If you are looking at a painting and you recognize that there is a skill deficit, you're already building the skill. You're already learning what you need to learn. Because here's the thing, if you did not have that skill, if you weren't already developing it, then you wouldn't even notice that there's a problem there. Think about that for a second.

So there's a fair amount of “let's take responsibility for where we actually are,” so that we can continue to develop from an honest and accurate place. So can you do that? Be honest and accurate with where you actually are with your skill level, and also recognize that the very fact that you are noticing it means that you're already developing your skills. So can you give yourself credit for that?

Can you have the grace to be kind to yourself when you notice that there is a skill that you need to develop? Because I will tell you that you will learn that skill so much faster when you are honest about it and when you are kind to yourself as you allow yourself to get where you want to go. People think that beating themselves up and being cruel is going to make them work faster or paint better, and it just doesn't work that way.

Okay, sorry, so I snuck that in there, but I think it's really important. Because the way that we treat ourselves when we disappoint ourselves or when we don't have the skills that we want, I mean, like, being disappointed because you don't have the skills? Like, I could do a whole episode on that.

But for now, what I will say about it is what that does is it adds to the fear or the discomfort in painting. It is part of the reason why we don't finish paintings, it's being cruel to yourself, beating yourself up. It would make sense that you don't want to finish the painting if that's the experience that you have while you're painting, okay? So if any of that is present, then I'm going to stop and address it.

On the other hand, if curiosity is gone or the learning that I wanted to get out of that painting is complete, then I know that it's time to let it go. So this is why self-awareness is key, knowing when you are forcing creativity out of fear or when you are genuinely done with the painting.

Because in addition to all the technical skills that you're learning about painting as you paint it, you're also learning to honor your creative process and to honor your instinct for what's best for you and what's best for your painting. That is an incredibly important skill that you are already developing when you do this.

It's a really important distinction between trying to cajole your creativity using fear or forcing it, versus treating your creativity—treating your process—with honor and with respect. Personally, when I lead with honor and respect of my creative process, all of the drama disappears. I have full trust in my own decisions about my art.

I have full trust that my unconscious mind holds anything I may have needed from that painting. I have full trust that the idea that I let go will find a new home and that a different or a better version is already on its way to me.

When I believe in the abundance of my creative process, my creative process becomes even more abundant. When I believe in my own capacity to continually develop my skills and I trust in the wisdom of my own process, my skills continue to develop and grow. That is such a beautiful thing.

What that does is it allows us to experience the joy in our work. It allows us to be present with what is actually happening in the creative process. There's no graspiness there because we're allowing a natural flow to happen when we create.

We create blocks when we hold on to things and refuse to let go. We create blocks in the flow when we don't trust that there is a natural flow of the creative process. We create blocks when we cling to the past and don't allow our future selves to come into the studio.

That is what unfinished paintings have to offer us. They offer us the opportunity to trust in our own capacity to continually develop skills. They allow you to trust in your own decisions. The more you trust your decisions, the more you trust your process, the more abundant and joyful your creativity becomes. It just compounds on itself. It just creates more and more and more of the things that you want.

So quick recap. There is abundance in your unfinished paintings when you choose to see them that way. Letting go is a gift that you can give yourself. Trusting your intuition, embracing the abundance of your creative process is just going to bring more of that.

Allow yourself to release the ideas that are not serving you. The ideas about your finished paintings, the ideas that anything about their presence means anything negative about you and your process. By releasing these past ideas that are unfinished, we open up space for new possibilities and continue to allow ourselves to grow as artists.

So trusting your process and letting go of anything that doesn't serve you anymore allows your creativity to blossom, to be even more abundant and to continue to guide you as you become the artist that you are becoming. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

All right, that's all I have to say about that. I hope you have so much fun with your paintings this week. I hope you treat yourself well and you have an amazing week. Talk soon.

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