How to tell if a painting is finished

A work is finished when an artist realizes his [or her] intentions

Rembrandt

When something is finished, that means it’s dead, doesn’t it? I never finish anything. I just stop working on it for awhile.

Arshile Gorky

One of the most frequently asked questions in the artist support groups I belong to is “is this painting finished?”.

While it’s tempting to ask others what they think, I’ve found that my house mates often think my work is finished long before I do (and often see garden gnomes and fairies in my abstract landscapes 😉 ). I also think it’s an important development in an artist’s evolution to be able to resolve incomplete work on their own. Not that I’ve mastered that myself…

Here are some techniques and strategies I’ve developed to help me get past this difficult stage (and ultimately, get more work to the ‘completed’ point).

Strategies that help me decide when a painting is finished

1. Ask questions. What do I like about the work? What do I dislike about the work? Does the painting have enough variety and interest? Often, the answers to these questions are enough to let me push forward and make improvements in the work.
2. Change the painting’s orientation; One of my favourite reasons for painting on square substrates is the ability to rotate the work without changing the composition. Sometimes a simple rotation will let me see how to resolve a piece. Sometimes I’ll end up liking it even better in this new orientation!
3. Look at the painting from a distance; It’s hard to see the work as a whole when you’re standing too close. Walking across the room and seeing the painting from a distance lets my eye take in the big picture, rather than any little details that might be bothering me.
4. Photograph the painting and look at it on your phone; Like looking at the painting from a distance, seeing it on a small screen reduces the importance of those small scale details and lets me see whether the overall composition is working.
5. Draw a thumbnail of what you see. Confine yourself to simple shapes and lines. It’s a great way to really ‘see’ your work, and as an added bonus, you can try out potential additions and changes to the painting on the thumbnail. I have an entire sketchbook dedicated to these. Easy and risk-free!
6. Remove colour from the equation; Many artists regularly look at their photographed work in grey-scale or monochrome. It’s surprising how colour can over-power other aspects of the work. Sometimes so much as to hide the underlying structure and composition of the painting to an inexperienced eye. I also love using the Notans app to play around with how strongly I want the blacks and whites to appear. Beware though. You may see things in your work that you won’t be able to ‘un-see’. (I’ve recently used this to my advantage and name a pair of paintings that John Belushi’s face appear in after two songs from the movie The Blues Brothers 😉 ).
7. Notice where your eye goes; Peer at the painting over your shoulder, or at the edge of your vision as you walk by. Notice what your eye gravitates towards first. Then where it moves to. Mark up your photos with lines and arrows to understand the way the viewer’s eye will move through the piece. Sometimes this helps me decide which shapes to accentuate and which to cover up, making the eye’s journey easier.
8. Pop the original piece in a mat or frame; Sometimes treating a piece like it’s finished can show you that it actually is. I like to look at my work in different coloured frames and mats too; it’s surprising how the colour contrast between painting and not-painting change the way the work looks.
9. Stage the painting; I use the ArtRooms app to imagine how my paintings might look in different room settings. (Hint: you can also add frames within the app, combining this strategy with #8 above). This is a great way to see what kind of impact your painting might have. And makes it immediately obvious if there’s still work to be done.
10. Start something new; When I’m stuck with a painting I will often put it in ‘time out’, removing it from my sight for a few days (or weeks) and start something brand new. I used to think of this as procrastination and avoidance, but now realize that it’s a great way to get back to the free, intuitive phase of painting, which often spills over onto the painting that was troubling me.

Have you tried any of these suggestions when you’ve wondered whether your painting was finished? Do you have others techniques that help you decide? Leave a comment below to continue the discussion! xx