When is an art work finished?

When is an art work finished? 10/18/2009

I remembered a lesson I was taught, always remember to use and have passed on to my students, like many lessons in one medium. you can apply it to any art form, and life itself.

I remembered this technique, the other day, when chatting with a friend about how we go through periods of indecision and lack of motivation in life. I use it when I lack clarity in knowing what to do next.

It’s a simple technique; it simply requires you to ask yourself questions. Just make sure your asking the right questions.

‘Ask the right question and you usually get the right answer’

If I relate this for a moment to how I learned the technique and taught it, as an artist, it was in response to ‘How the painter knows when a painting is finished?’

Explanation: - The average unskilled art student and self taught artist, overworks a painting and ruins the potential it had with excessive work. They keep finding more that can be done, to do in the work and they are never content with it, never feel it is ‘finished’. As a writer I am learning to apply what I have long known as a painter, to get to the point quickly and not ruin what I’m saying with excessive waffling. In life, it’s recognising what needs to be done and when it’s OK to step back and rest. When you look at a work in front of you, don’t say, “What more can I do”, because there is always more to be done, you could put birds in the sky, rocks on the ground, another blade of grass, there is never an end to the, ‘What more can I do’, question and the project goes downhill, looses the breath of fresh air, enthusiasm it started in and the multiple layers of paint result in a work that simply, cracks. In life, If we keep looking at life with a ‘what more can I do’ question I think we become what is in danger of cracking. Sometimes the best thing to do, is nothing. J. Be patient with yourself.

Try this question next time. It makes for great artists and some brilliant art works.

Step back and look at the picture from afar and ask the right question the question that on reflection should bring forth the right answer:- 'What more does it need'?.

What more does it NEED?
If while you look at the work, the project on hand, you do not hear it ‘speak to you’, to tell you clearly, something it ‘NEEDS’ to have done to it, then STOP.

Towards the final phase of every great art work, of every life project, you reach the point where the plan has been made, the block in has been done, a little refining has been done and your now at the detail, fiddly bits stage, this is the stage when a good art teacher instructs you to do ‘more look than put’. I think that advice I learned can be used in all the art forms, including life. Most of my life mistakes have been from wanting to rush in, over commit and try to ‘fix things up’, rather than step back, observe, do a lot more looking on than putting on and asking, 'what more does it need', not 'what more can I do'?. Using my observations tool and looking back over my life, using that tool would have made me a better parent, and certainly have spared me the stroke, workaholism gave me, now that’s another story about someone who tried to fix everyone else’s problems instead of realizing if she didn’t care for herself, she would be no use to anyone. J.

Today I try to observe and make corrections before things reach that sort of breaking point.

An artist learns to put the brush down, take your mind off the project, walk around the block, get the mail, look at and smell some roses, sleep on it, turn it upside down, look at it through sun glasses, lol, J, take long breaks and come back and take a fresh look at it again, leave enough time after the block in and refinement stage so that you stop seeing the brush strokes you put down and see the overall picture. Then, only when the work speaks to you, DEMANDS that it NEEDS something, do you know what finishing touch, detail, you can do to ‘lift’ the work and have it ready for your signature, COMPLETED.

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