Quantity > Quality

Every great artist leaves behind a handful of works the world eventually calls masterpieces, but what remains largely unseen is the vast terrain of paintings that led there. Behind each celebrated canvas exists a quiet archive of attempts, studies layered over studies, experiments scraped away, surfaces that never quite resolved. This is the part of art making that rarely gets romanticized, yet it holds a simple and powerful truth: painting, at its core, is a numbers game.

To paint seriously is to accept mistakes as companions. Perfection has a seductive pull, but chasing it too closely can freeze the hand before it ever touches the surface. The fear of getting it wrong can silence curiosity. And yet, history reminds us that even the most revered painters made far more work that failed than work that succeeded. What set them apart was not flawless execution, but their willingness to keep going, to let each misstep inform the next attempt.

Van Gogh painted relentlessly, driven not by applause or certainty, but by the need to see more clearly through paint. Thousands of canvases passed through his hands, many unresolved, many misunderstood. Each one, however, sharpened his sense of color, rhythm, and emotional truth. Triumph and failure were not opposites in his practice; they were part of the same continuous motion forward.

The act of painting teaches through repetition. With every canvas, you learn something, how a color shifts when placed beside another, how a brush behaves when pressed or lifted, how far an idea can be pushed before it collapses. Quantity breeds familiarity, and familiarity breeds confidence. The more you paint, the more instinctive your decisions become. What once required hesitation begins to flow.

In a world that celebrates finished, polished images, it’s easy to feel discouraged by the pile of work that doesn’t feel worthy of being seen. But growth doesn’t happen overnight. It happens in the quiet hours, in the failed compositions, in the canvases turned to the wall. Persistence, not perfection, is what carries an artist forward. The act of returning to the studio again and again matters more than the outcome of any single piece.

When you allow yourself to make a lot of work, something shifts. You stop placing impossible expectations on each painting and begin to see them as part of a larger conversation. Styles evolve. Themes repeat and transform. Ideas that once felt weak resurface later with new strength. Looking back, you realize that the paintings you once dismissed were essential, they were the ground that allowed stronger work to stand.

Mastery is not the result of waiting for the perfect idea or the perfect moment. It is built slowly, through volume, exploration, and endurance. Each canvas is a step, whether it succeeds or not. So when doubt creeps in and the masterpieces feel far away, remember this: every painting counts. Keep painting, keep experimenting, keep adding to the numbers. Somewhere in that accumulation, your voice clarifies, and the extraordinary begins to emerge.