Stewart Readings: Choice of Materials

In early chapters, I understand that brainstorming is good for ideas, when the idea is created now its time to construct. Deciding what kind of materials to use seems pretty crucial. The only experience I have so far is acrylic painting on canvas and gesso painted over plywood. Pretty minor if you ask me. So the worse that can happen is that I paint something I hate and start over on the same canvas. So artist dealing with many mediums may have to play scientist to see what is going to work when it comes to using many different kinds of other materials before embarking on a large scale piece. Makes me wonder if Richard Serra has ever wanted to redo an installation (which I know he has people to do the work for him) and if so does he just scrap the metal and start all over. Sounds like any mistakes he makes can be massively expensive. But who knows, maybe his brainstorming techniques are so well thought out that there isn't any room for mistakes.