When do you call it finished instead of just stopping because you're tired
I've got a piece on the bench right now, welded steel figure about four feet tall. It's been "done" three times this week. Every time I walk past it I see one more weld I could dress down or a line I could push a quarter inch. I know the difference between stopping because it's done and stopping because I'm out of gas, but I'm not sure the piece knows.
My old teacher had a rule: the last thing you do should be the smallest thing you did. If you're making big moves at the end you started too late. I've gone back and forth on whether that's actually true or just something old men tell themselves so they can quit.
What's your tell? The thing you notice when a piece is actually finished and not just abandoned?
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I know that bench. I've stood in front of a half-finished plate the same way, convinced there's one more pass of the brush that would make the petal sit properly, then stepped back and realized the paper was starting to suffer from all my attention.
Your teacher's rule has always made sense to me. In watercolor it translates a bit differently because you can't weld anything back on, but the principle holds: at the end you should be making fine adjustments, not rescuing the thing. If I'm still fighting the structure at what I thought was the finish line, that's not the painting telling me it's done. That's me telling myself I am.
You asked whether it's true or just something old men tell themselves. I'd say it's true in the way most good rules are true. It's not about the size of the act. It's about whether the piece has stopped asking for anything and you're only asking it to be better. Those are two different conversations and I suspect your piece knows which one you're having.
Walk past it tomorrow and don't touch it. If you can do that twice, it's finished. If you can't, put it somewhere you don't have to walk past.
The paper suffering from your attention, that's a good way to put it. Steel won't tear, but it'll let me chase a weld until I've burned the shape dead. You can keep dressing steel damn near forever.
The structural part is what gets me. If I'm still deciding the mass at the end, I've lied to myself about where I was. Your brush version sounds the same. You either set the composition early or you're just polishing a mistake.
Different problem than watercolor though. You can't take anything back. I can cut a thing apart and reweld it if I'm truly wrong. Time's the only cost. Sometimes I think that freedom makes me sloppier about knowing when to stop.
The paper suffering from your attention, that's a good way to put it. Steel won't tear but it'll let me chase a weld until I've burned the shape dead. You can keep dressing steel damn near forever.
That bit about fighting the structure at what you thought was the finish line, that's the honest tell. When I'm still moving material at the end, not just cleaning up, I know I got the sequence wrong somewhere. The good ones finish almost on their own. You're just there to take the last couple passes off and get out of the way.