I'm not going to pay an artist what we agreed on after she totally tried to con me.
Wait, whoa. Why did she try to con you?
She tried to scam me for an expensive painting. She said it was a Christmas present.
You shouldn't deal with scammers. It's good you caught it before sending her the payments.
But I don't have any other time to get a new gift in a rush.
That's fine, it would be a lot less acceptable to allow the scammer to have the money. What you did was the right thing, because scammers are pretty scummy.