How I know when a painting is finished

I've been thinking today about how I know when a painting is finished... Sometimes it’s obvious, like, oh wow, I just put that mark there perfectly and it is so clearly done and I LOVE it and adding anymore to it would just be detrimental! That was the case with this painting:

“Red Dirt and Alligator Lizards,” 2023

But this is such a rare occurrence I think I can count on one hand the number of times it’s happened!

Most of the time it’s like blazing a new trail.

You could always just keep hacking your way through the underbrush, hoping that maybe there’s a bigger and better thing to see just around the bend, but at some point you have to call it and hope that your sunk cost fallaciousness won’t push you into doing something stupid.

That’s the moment that makes or breaks a painting.

I’m learning to recognize this moment and use it to pause, take a breath, and put. the. paintbrush. DOWN…

Give it some space. Walk away. Come back with fresh eyes in a day or two. Sometimes when I come back I think, “oh, that’s not so bad!” and sometimes I come back and still don’t know what to do next… so I leave it for a while longer. Sometimes paintings are abandoned and sometimes trails are boring as fuck.

But sometimes you get something electrifying when you trust the process.

“Sierra Storm,” 2023

Sierra Storm in progress 1

Sierra Storm in progress 2