Are We There Yet? When is a Painting Finished?

I don’t believe “Art is never finished, only abandoned”.* There are definitely paintings and drawings in which you reach a point when it’s as clear as a road sign: stop now, it’s finished. More often though, you get to a point where you begin to wonder whether it might be, whether doing more will enhance or overwork it. Here are some things I use to help me decide if it’s time to down brushes or not.

Am I Tweaking?
If I find myself tweaking a little thing here, and another there, fiddling and fussing about with random small changes rather than doing something definite and decisive, then it’s time to stop. Put the painting aside for a while, overnight at the least, so I can look at it again with fresh eyes. Sometimes I’ll immediately see what it still needs, other times I’ll decide it was indeed finished, and, yes, there will be times when I’m still unsure so I leave it to be pondered.

A paintings I think is almost done, but not quite, I like to put somewhere I can see it often during the day, from different angles and distances, in changing light, as I go about doing other things. Not to forget the looking at it in a mirror and turning it upside down options, both of which help you see it anew.

Am I Bored?
Tweaking a painting also happens when I’m bored with or tired of it or just not in the mood for it. Never mind why, perhaps I’ve struggled too much with it, it doesn’t change that I am not fully engaged with it, so? it’s time to put the painting aside for now. I’ll decide on another day whether to continue with it or overpaint it.

Am I Protecting a “Good Bit”?
If I’ve stopped working on a section of the painting because I really like it, protecting a “good bit” for fear of messing it up, then it’s time to check it’s integrated with the rest of the composition. There’s the danger the “good bit” ends up feeling like it doesn’t belong and it may be the very thing that needs additional work.

There’s a balance between stopping before you overwork a painting and stopping because you’re too scared you’ll mess something up. If you always stop, you’ll hinder your artistic development. When I hit this point I may well stop working on that particular painting but immediately start another using the same idea. Not to create a duplicate, but to push the idea further, using what I’d learnt from the previous one without the fear of messing it up. Think of? the paintings as cousins rather than twins, a series rather than copies.

Am I Finished for Today?
Amongst the numerous things I’ve learnt from friend who’s a wildlife artist, Katie Lee, is the mantra “as good as I can paint it today”. That a painting may not be as I’d visualized it or wish it to be, but to allow myself to stop as it’s as finished as I’m able to make it today. A year from now I may be able to take it further because my skills, style and preferences will develop over time, but today I’ve gone as far as I can with it.? There’s no rule you can’t at a later date paint further on a canvas you once thought was finished.

Have I Consulted the Dark Side?
Does the painting want a stronger dark or lighter light? Is there sufficient tonal contrast, or have I been seduced by colour (again!) and it’s all too mid-tone? Is there a focal point or pattern (for more abstracted paintings) that pulls the eye around? Are there any stray bits of colour that sit awkwardly in the overall composition?

Stop Sooner Rather than Later
You can always add to a painting; it’s a lot harder to undo something. Tomorrow is a new day. Decide then whether to continue rather than now.

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*Note on the Quote
The quote “Art is never finished, only abandoned” gets attributed to both Leonardo da Vinci and Picasso. As far as I can ascertain it’s a paraphrase of the French poet Paul Val èry (1871–1945), from his 1922 poetry book, Charmes ou poèmes:

“In the eyes of those lovers of perfection, a work is never finished?a word that for them has no sense?but abandoned; and this abandonment, whether to the flames or to the public (and which is the result of weariness or an obligation to deliver) is a kind of an accident to them, like the breaking off of a reflection, which fatigue, irritation, or something similar has made worthless.”

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