Done the Dawg!!

Those two little words that I crave...I'M DONE!!

Having said that, this morning as soon as I got up, before showering, with coffee in hand, I ended up tweeking the Dawg's ear, and then some of the grass under her ear...all of this AFTER I had signed the painting and deemed it done.

Thus poses the question, is a painting ever 'done' or 'finished'? I think not. Paintings and drawings are merely abandoned. This is not to suggest for a moment that a painting is given up on, or that is is somehow inferior, but that there is always something a painting demands to be tweeked. Each painting 'finished' is merely a teacher at that particular time in the artist's journey of creating. An artist's best teacher is her last piece of art.

I know when I getting close to finishing or abandoning a painting. My view of it becomes distorted somehow, and I start to 'see' the piece become cartoon-like in my mind's eye. My creative mind is tired of looking at it...there comes that point in my process when I start to wipe off more paint than I leave on the surface. Those marks that are removed no longer enhance the piece as a whole, therefore, they are removed. This is when I know I am nearing the finish line.

So, as I throw myself across the finish line on this painting, I am already thinking of the next one to put on the easel or send to Warner Bros....