It's a question I get often. "How do you know when a painting is finished?" It's a question I ask myself: "how will I tell when it's done?"
So, I just finished a painting. I think this one took 10 or 11 days. I would say that most of my paintings lately come together in about 4 days. So comparatively, this one took its time getting done. I even snuck in another little painting while this one was still up on the easel. But it's nowhere near the longest amount of time I've spent on a painting. No matter the amount of time spent on a piece the question remains the same: "Is it done?"
There's no simple answer but in the end the answer is simple. When you can answer with a yes it's done. It all comes down to a gut feeling. You can walk away and not need to go back.
I walk away from my paintings constantly. To make myself pull back. When I'm painting I am super focused on each paint stroke, sometimes the overall picture gets lost in the detail. I literally run back and forth across the room to look from a distance. To make sure everything lines up. That the shadows work. To check the horizon. And every time I step back I formulate a plan of attack. I work out a strategy to get it closer to being done, to finding the end.
So in order to get to the end, to finish the painting, I have to fix it. I start out all loose and then I have to reign it back in, find the details, and figure out what the painting needs to be done. The longer a painting takes, the smaller and smaller the corrections become. Sometimes its an elusive glazing color, sometimes its edges just being ever so off, a line that just won't line up. So its a big back and forth, near and far, and the endless question "is it done"? Sometimes the answer just seems far out of reach and I have to stare at it and try to see what's missing. But suddenly, everything just clicks and you almost don't know how it happened. Some little brushstroke just pulls everything together.
And I step back one final time and I usually say "I think its finished" and after a final touch here or there "it's done".
But really what it all comes down to is how I feel when I look at the painting. When its not done it seems so obvious to me. But when its done, when its finished, when I look at that painting....I feel content. So for those who have asked, this is how I know its done, how I know a painting is finished, how I get to the end.
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