How do you keep “risk” alive while you are completing a painting?

The need for risk-taking gets higher actually, as we move towards completing and finishing our work. We do have to slow down, and use more discernment, so it may feel more controlled. It feels as if the stakes are higher because we have invested time and energy in our art in the later stages.

But a willingness to risk -  by letting go of something that we may have invested a lot of our time and energy into, for the betterment of the whole painting - is essential. This kind of risk is rooted in a willingness to abandon that one element that you are so in love with, because it is the one thing that isn't really working in the almost completed work. Making a big change, especially at the later stages of a painting, may require you to change other things in your work in response to this first change.