How do you know when a painting is done?

I get this question a lot, "How do you know when your painting is finished?" "How do you know when to stop?'

It's complicated...

And I'm not sure if there is an answer. Some days I can finish a painting in one sitting and smile when I'm finished. Most days, I have to walk away and look at it another day with fresh eyes, and another day, and so on. I'll hang it in my home, somewhere where I have to look at it often, taking note of the feelings I get when I look at it. I usually ask myself these questions about the painting

1) Does it "feel" like me?

2) Does it make me happy, calm or provoke a memory or value-how do I connect with it?

3) Do I want to sell it? If the answer is no, because I love it too much, then it's done. If the answer is no, because I wouldn't be able to have a confident conversation about it or be hesitant to say it was my work, then it needs more work.

Here's an example for you from a painting I reworked this week. First of all, this piece is really different for me, so I wasn't sure about any part of it. I started it several weeks ago after a Sunday drive right when things were starting to green up for spring. I wanted to push myself to play with a cooler color palette, different from my normal pinks and oranges, and capture more greens and blues from the color palette I viewed on my drive.

This has been hanging in my master bath for about three weeks now. Every time I  walked in my bathroom, I cringed. Not because it was ugly, but because it didn't feel like me, and I kept thinking of a golf course every time I looked at it...I played golf every summer growing up and it was not a fun experience for me, but very frustrating, hot and long. Someone else may have connected with this in a good way, but it still didn't feel like "me". It felt chaotic-in a bad way, not a fun way, and well, just unfinished.