KNOWING WHEN TO STOP... OR NOT...

Taped on my studio walI is a wonderful quote from contemporary British painter Ken Howard:

A picture is done when it gives back to you the sensation that you felt when you first saw the subject.

It sounds so simple, right?

But In practice, knowing when to stop working on a painting is one of the hardest parts of the job. I can't tell you how many promising canvases I have ruined by overworking them.

 

When I initially posted these photographs of me working on Ralph's Barns, I assumed that progress on the painting would take the usual trajectory of a larger plein air piece, and that soon I would be ready to show off an image of the finished painting.

But I lost the struggle with this one. As you study the images below, note how the painting stiffened up as I continued to work on it. Note how the liveliness and energy visible in my brushwork early on are gradually buried in subsequent layers of paint.

 

Click on images to enlarge

 

This beautifully situated cluster of barns form a powerful focal point for a painting, while the shoreline provides a dynamic element leading into the scene.

 

Ralph's Barns, after about 20 minutes. A strong beginning is essential for any successful plein air painting, and I believe still that this painting got off to a terrific start.

 

Ralph's Barns, seen about an hour into my first session. It is still looking fine: my brushwork is vigorous, the space and atmosphere is nearly resolved. At this point, I shifted my focus to the complications in the foreground... and ran into trouble.

Ralph's Barns at the conclusion of two hours, as I packed up for the day. It is always my goal to complete a plein air painting in one session (or alla prima), but in this instance the complexity of the scene and rapidly changing light tripped me up. My strong start seemed to weaken the longer I worked on it. Note how the initially simple passages of darker values have been broken up into distracting, smaller shapes.

The comment above was written when I first posted these images, nearly two years ago. Today I view this state of Ralph's Barns and I see that it was nearly done. Indeed, I probably could have made minor adjustments in the studio and had a fine painting. But, instead, I took the canvas back out to try again in the field....

 

 

Ralph's Barns after a second day. The entire painting has been restated, and the foreground seems to have been resolved

When working in plein air, the light and atmosphere of every day is unique. And if I take a painting back on site for an additional session, I have to be willing to repaint the entire surface in order to maintain the overall integrity of the experience.

Note how the overall color balance of the painting has shifted with the leafing out of the spring foliage. Only four days had elapsed since staring this painting, but the scene had changed significantly. In addition, the weather on this second day was clear and brighter than the first.

At the time, in spring of 2004, I was convinced that I needed one more session to correct the drawing of the barn, and to soften the dark wedge in the water at the lower left. These are the kinds of corrections that I often make in the studio, but for some reason I took the canvas back out on site again. That proved to be a fatal error for this painting...

Ralph's Barns after a third on-site session, about a week after the initial day. Again, I have essentially repainted much of the surface, especially on the lower half of the painting. But as I continued to refine the drawing of the barn, note how the edges became stiff and hard edged. In this third stage, the complications of the marshy foreground are softer and more subtle perhaps, but to my eye they have become flat and lifeless.

I was disheartened after I brought this painting back home. I made a few feeble attempts to finish it up here in the studio, but finally gave up. Today, it is stacked in the corner of the room with other work that remains unfinished, unresolved, and unloved.

 

So why did I keep hacking away at this painting? What was wrong with it at the end of that very first day?

As I look back at these pictures today, I can not answer those questions. The painting in its earlier stages looks fine to me now, but when I am immersed in the creative process, I lose perspective, and my judgement often becomes clouded.

After so many years of painting, both in the field and in my studio, one would think that I would have learned by now when to stop working on a painting. But I still have more to learn.

It seems that my best paintings are often those that are, by default, 'finished' when I am forced to quit by external circumstances: a sharp change in the weather, or running to make an appointment, or to meet the kids arriving home on the schoolbus.

You would think there is a lesson to be learned in that observation...

 

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