Usually I don’t show a painting in progress to my artist friends. I wait until it is more finished before I invite constructive comments. But yesterday, I showed this painting to an art buddy who commented that it is finished. That took me by surprise because I have many ideas of how to continue working on what I merely considered an ‘underpainting’ of a girl diving to the bottom of Lake Michigan.

Earlier, during our lunch, some of the artists had discussed the difficulty to know when a work is finished. The danger being that one could overdo it, thereby destroying it. With that in mind, rather than continuing working on my painting, I decided to do the same motif over but then experiment with further ideas.
Do you know when your work is finished – painting, writing, sculpting, designing your garden, inventing a new cooking recipe…?