When to stop

When you read much about the creation of art, a very common discussion is about an artist knowing when to stop. It can be critical to stop at the right time in order to keep a work fresh looking. It's very difficult to walk away from a work when you know that you could keep adding.

I have found that I have been getting caught up in details in a lot of my paintings. In order to stop doing that, I limited my time of working on a painting to one hour for the day. It was an interesting exercise but I can't say that I am all that happy with the results. The point is to limit myself to stop touching a painting when it has been cooked enough. I do plan to try and do a few more exercises like this.

On another note, I was searching for an image to use as a way of illustrating what I meant by learning to leave things less touched and came across this interesting address by William Kentridge. It is a poignant to me as I try to make my start in art making. The advice he received is very intersting to me as I read through books on how to remain focused on what it ultimately means to make art or be an artist. You ultimately cannot give advice other than to remain focused on what it means to yourself to be an artist. Like all things valuable - we have all the answers but we just need to find them within ourselves. Well, I'm looking all over the place and if I find any answers, I'll be sure to post them here.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.javaribook.com/wkn-chapters/kentridge04a.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.javaribook.com/wkn-chapters/0967916186.htm&h=530&w=400&sz=25&hl=en&start=0&sig2=E99u7XgBROQIv7K4vvHYqQ&um=1&tbnid=LbxGK_B8fr_mVM:&tbnh=132&tbnw=100&ei=RSOsRujEOoaiwAH61eCPBA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmatisse,%2Bdrawing,%2Bwoman,%2Brear,%2Bthree%2Blines%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26sa%3DG

btw sorry I don't know how to make that a link yet so you'll have to copy it and paste in the browser.