On finishing a painting
Studio · August 2026
On finishing a painting
The hardest thing in the studio is not the start. The start is easy — a clean panel, a first note of colour, the whole thing still promise. The hardest thing is the last week, when the painting has begun to answer back and you must decide whether it is done.
A painting is not finished when there is nothing left to add. It is finished when there is nothing left to take away without the picture flinching. I have learned to suspect the urge to "just fix" a passage. Nine times in ten the impulse to add is really an impulse to look away — to cover the thing that is already working because looking at it has become uncomfortable.
The painting is finished when the only remaining marks are the ones it would miss.
So I have a rule. When I think a panel is done, I lean it against the wall and do not touch it for three days. I walk past it. I let it catch me when I am not expecting it. If, after three days, there is a passage that still calls out to be adjusted, I adjust it — once. If not, it is finished, and I sign it in the lower corner where a frame will half-hide it, which is as it should be.
The signature is not a flourish. It is a contract to stop.