The surprising secret to great paintings

This week, I want to talk about the secret ingredient that makes great art. 

It’s not talent, or materials. It's not colour or composition. I think it's struggle.

If a painting hasn’t gone through a struggle, it feels thin. Too easy.  I can sense it immediately when I look at other people’s work—and my own too. If a painting  came into being without resistance, it doesn’t have any depth to it. It hasn’t been tested.

And yet, this is exactly the moment where so many artists give up.

I was reminded of this during the free course I just ran (thank you to everyone who showed up and did the work with me—it was such a joy to see you all painting).

Again and again I saw how quickly people wanted to abandon their paintings as soon as things got difficult.

That’s not a criticism—it’s so normal. We all do it. But it struck me how much we equate struggle with failure, when in fact the opposite is true. The struggle is the work.

Here’s how it usually goes: we start a painting with a burst of energy and excitement. The canvas is clean, the idea feels fresh, we can almost see the future masterpiece! And then, inevitably, things get messy. The colors aren’t working. The composition starts to sag. The whole thing looks… well, ugly.

And that’s when the little voice kicks in: “I must not be good at this, or else I wouldn't be struggling so much."

But honestly—how daft is that? Imagine if a writer gave up as soon as their first draft looked bad. Imagine if a musician quit the second they hit a wrong note. It’s absurd. Of course there’s struggle. The struggle isn’t a sign of failure—it’s the heart of the process.

The ugly stage is where the real work begins. That’s the place where you stop coasting and start wrestling. Suddenly, the painting is no longer a flat surface with marks on it—it’s a conversation partner. You argue, you negotiate, you push and pull until something unexpected emerges. And out of that tussle comes depth, richness, and a painting you couldn’t have planned at the start.

I'm working on a new series with a rich theme. It's the kind of theme that is asking a lot of me. I don't have a clear path and I am working towards answers. 

One painting in particular was a breakthrough. It has everything I have been looking for - it's raw, emotional, beautiful but not pretty. It feels truly alive and it feels like me.

Every so often, one of these paintings comes along - almost like a gift. But the moment after a breakthrough can be even harder. Because the next thing we want to do is reproduce it. We chase that same energy, but we can't get it.

Why not? Because we haven’t gone through the struggle yet.

At the moment, that's where I am. I have some paintings that are nice to look at, but feel meaningless to me. I have some others that are just plain ugly - maybe at some point I had something, but i covered it over and now there's nothing. None of them come close to that "star" painting.

But here's what I know. This is the magic stage. This is where the work is. It's time to knuckle down and do my job. I truly believe this is what makes the difference between surface-level work and something that breathes. Struggle gives paintings their density. It’s the thing you can’t fake.

And here’s the real secret: the struggle isn’t just making the painting better—it’s making you better. Every fight with a painting is a fight with yourself: with your impatience, your perfectionism, your fear of failure. And every time you stick with it instead of quitting, you grow a little tougher, a little freer, a little more honest as an artist.

So relish those ugly paintings - see them for what they are - essential stages on your journey to your own perosnal unique and rich paintings.