When to stop?

When to stop?  I took this picture of a watercolor painting when I felt like I was finished with the subject but without a background. My guts said "you're done..." But the average everyday painting has a foreground, subject, and background.  Animal artists I love, like Fredrick Remington, sometime paint the whole scene, sometimes they paint only the subject.  For the latter, they'll call them a "study" and for the former a "painting."  Alas, I should have stopped and called it a study. Instead I added a snowy pine tree and lost my love for the piece. Oh well. lesson learned. I am student of art and a study should be enough for now!

This picture came about from a photo I took the day after Thanksgiving. I was driving from our cabin to the nearest store to pick up some meds for my lovely wife and I passed a nice heard of Mule Deer. A two point buck and a few does grazing in the long dead grass and snow.  I should have stopped there and took the picture but I drove on.

On the way home I rubber necked looking for the herd but all I found was a lone doe, near the end of the road, watching me drive by.  These mule deer will let you stop your car without much agitation, but if you get out they'll run, hop the fence and lope up the steep slopes away into the dark forest. So I stopped my truck, rolled down the window and took three photos from three angles, trying to frame the shot without getting out of my comfy warm Pathfinder.  The shot is here:

The next step was to sketch the photo onto plain paper with a number 4B pencil, fix my proportions, tape the sketch to the window, then copy it onto a piece or Arches 140lb cotton fiber paper. I used Yellow Ochre, Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna, and French Ultramarine.  I was hoping for some white guache to spray on the back and head of the little deer but my palette is limited in the mountains. I practiced the paint mix on an extra piece of paper, trying not to pre-mix the color, but instead allowing the color to mix on the paper. This method worked with little success. I ended up washing a brown mixture over the initial paint to bring down the red.

I won't show you the painting with the ugly little pine tree. I like the "study" at the top.  I'll try this subject again soon and stop painting sooner rather than later.... THAT is when to stop.