Why do we call the painting “painting” when it’s already done?
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It’s a part of grammar known as a “gerund”. That’s the term for turning a verb into a noun by using its “-ing” form. It doesn’t happen with just “painting”:
“that building”, “that drawing of a building”, “that posting on the board”, “the writing on the wall”, etc.
Even if it’s not a typically used gerund, people will still understand you if you invent a new one by taking any verb and using the -ing version as if it was a noun. Even if it’s the first time anyone heard that gerund so it sounds strange, they’ll still understand the meaning.
“I’m here at the polls. Where is the voting again?”
“How is the cooking going?”
“That was a boring trip, but I’m glad the driving is over.”
I can see a slight difference between two kinds of gerunds though: The kind where the noun is “the activity” and the kind where the noun is “the object that results from the activity”. “Painting”, “Building”, and “Drawing” refer to the object that was the result of the activity, while my “driving”, “cooking”, and “voting” examples refer to the action of doing the verb. If they worked like “a painting” worked, then “a voting” would be a filled-in ballot, and “a cooking” would be a meal.
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