Information compiled by Donald Landry

If you have trouble deciding when a painting is finished, there are simple steps and tools you can use to negotiate the maze of uncertainty. The following are three oft-heard (yet just as often ignored) fundamentals:

1. Be a kid again. Look at the world with wonder. Take it all in and question everything. Force yourself to spend time just observing. After arriving at a location, I often see nothing to paint and I pace, looking for inspiration. By just spending time there, something suddenly comes into focus and grabs me.
2. Keep it simple. Sometimes a pile of rocks or a shoreline below a majestic mountain can speak volumes. Open yourself up to the possibilities and get excited by their simplicity.
3. Follow your instincts. If you think something's interesting, don't let other people's judgments cloud your perception. Just because you've been told that something is ugly or of no merit doesn't make it so. Make the world see what you see.
4. Be a tourist in your own backyard. I see so much when I travel, yet I know that the people living there take it for granted. I've lived my whole life in the same river valley, and it's taken others to make me see the beauty of it. Play the tourist and experience your hometown as if for the first time.
5. Study other artists' works. Look at how they interpreted the same subject. Ask yourself why the painting is successful and what it is that moves you. After all, without his exciting use of color, Monet's hay bales are just hay bales.