Building a desktop app

Hello
I want to build a desktop application, something like what armorPaint is, not making a painting app, is just an example, my issue is that a desktop app, doesn’t have to refresh 60 fps all the time like a game and everything I tested makes the GPU be at 100 % while running, so what I want is the app to only update when you are interacting with it, let’s say when you click a button updates the viewport, when move the viewport redraws but when you let go the update stops.
I know I’ve seen something in SDL I think called Lazy Update or Lay rendering that did this.
Hope is clear what I need

thank you