I stopped posting my finished paintings and started posting the ugly stages and people actually engage now

I spent years putting only the final work online. Perfect lighting, good photo, the painting resolved. Crickets, mostly. A few likes from other painters.

A few months ago I was frustrated with a figure painting, the hand was wrong for the fourth time, the whole thing looked a mess, and I took a photo of it on the easel with my palette旁边, just to vent to a painter friend. I put it on Instagram almost without thinking. That post got more comments than anything I'd put up in six months.

People like to see the struggle. They like to see that you also don't know what you're doing for a while. I think for a long time I thought showing process would somehow diminish the finished work, like revealing the trick. But most people aren't painters. They have no idea what goes into it, and watching something get ugly and then get pulled back out of the ugly, that's the part they actually want to see.

I'm still not comfortable with it. I was trained to show only the resolved thing. But I can't argue with the numbers, and more to the point I can't argue with the fact that the conversations are better. People ask real questions instead of just saying "beautiful."

Wondering if anyone else has found that the unfinished, uncertain thing gets more traction than the polished final version.

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Giulia Bruno·2h

This makes so much sense to me but I think it's about something specific, not just "people like process."

Printmaking is weird because people love the final print but they have no idea how it gets there, pulling a bad proof, over-etching a plate, the moment you realise you've been chasing a mistake for three days because you refused to start over. I started posting those failures too and the engagement shift was real. But I think what's happening is that the finished work asks for a judgement, good or bad, like or don't, while the ugly stage asks for a response. It's an open question, not a statement. People want to be in the room where it happens, not just read the review after.

Camille LaurentOP·1h

That's exactly it. The finished thing is a closed door. The ugly stage is still open.

I hadn't thought about printmaking but of course it's the same, maybe worse because the process is so invisible. People see the editioned print and think it appeared whole. They don't see the plate being bitten three times or the wiped proof you knew was wrong at 11pm but kept working on anyway.

"Open question, not a statement", I'm going to steal that.

Dimitra Vasilakis·2h

This tracks with something I tell students all the time, a finished mosaic tells you nothing. You see the tesserae set, the grout in, it looks inevitable, like it just appeared that way. But the ugly stage, the fourth time you cut a piece wrong, the moment you realize you've been building your curve at the wrong angle for two hours, that's where the actual work lives.

I think people recognise that. Not as artists, just as humans who've also had to do something badly before they did it okay. The finished thing is a product. The mess is a person.

Camille LaurentOP·1h

The mosaic thing is perfect. Because a mosaic when it's done, you can't even see the work anymore. It just looks like a picture made of stone, like it was always that way. But the student who's been cutting the same shape four times, that's where you can talk to them.

That's it exactly, the finished thing is a product, the mess is a person. I might steal that for the studio wall.