Deciding if a painting is finished or not

I’ve been working on this painting for about a month now, on and off. I got to this point and thought it was finished. It laid on my table for a few days, waiting for me to photograph, and list it. The more I looked at it, tho, the more I thought the bird was too big, so last weekend, I revised it. 

The key to everything is patience.
You get the chicken by hatching the egg,
not by smashing it open.
– Arnold H. Glasgow

I filmed the process, so if you’re interested in seeing how I made the bird smaller, it will be coming out on my YT channel sometime next month. 

Once I had adjusted the bird’s size, I thought I’d like it, but I was still dissatisfied with the painting. There was something about her face I didn’t like. I worked on it all day, and this is the result..

Better Together
girl and bird painting on 9×12 flat panel
painted with palette knives and brushes
Available here

Turns out, a complete facelift was required to get the painting to where it is today. I had to reshape her head, which meant blocking it out, and starting over again. I’m happy I sat with the painting for a few days, and took the time to figure out what was bugging me about it. 

How do you decide when a painting is finished? Let me know in the comments below. 

Let thy step be slow and steady, that thou stumble not.
Tokugawa Ieyasu

She’s Got the Receipts painting video

I’m going to leave you with this video of my oil portrait painting titled She’s Got the Receipts. It’s available for purchase here.

I finished my daily YT video challenge for May. 31 videos have been uploaded between my two channels. Whew! I had hoped to continue filming last month, and have videos ready for June, but that didn’t happen. As with every daily challenge I’ve done, the days came at me fast. Somehow I lost track of time as the days whizzed by. I need to catch my breath, and regroup a bit. Going forward, I’m going to shoot for one video a week on both of my channels. I think Friday is going to be my uploading day, for now. Once I get some videos stockpiled again, I hope to add more to the schedule. Right now, I have other work that I need to get done, so my focus needs to shift a bit. 

You know me, when I find something good, I have to share. I bought these two books yesterday, and I’m almost done with both of them. I highly recommend reading Shane’s stories. I laughed, cried, and now see the world through his eyes in a whole new light. Click the images to read the descriptions. Also, you can subscribe to their youtube channel here. I must say, they’ve quickly moved to the top of my favorite vloggers. Can’t get enough of Squirmy and Grubs! 

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