When Is Enough - Enough?

Sometimes I have the tendency to overdo things. To take things one step too far. It is hard to know when to stop. So, how do you know when enough is just that - enough? In the drawing above you see a lot of negative space. Some people call it white space, except in this case it would  be green, yellow, and blue space. Hehehe!

Let me walk you through what I did here. I started with a scrap of watercolor paper - about 4" x 6". (I'm too tired to actually get up and go look for a ruler. Sorry.) I made a watercolor background with my Dylusions Ink Sprays - lemon zest and london blue. Then I made some ghosted dots with a stencil and some water. I liked the gridwork look of the dots, so I started with those and began filling in some of the dots with printemps.

I just kept adding them where it seemed appropriate. Then I added double lines - making the resemblance to tinker toys kind of the thing here. When I felt like I had "enough", I stopped. Notice that it does not cover the entire block. Not even a whole corner. I filled in a section that was irregular in shape, to give a comfortable feel to the page so far, then I left it at that and moved on.

I added some clusters of printemps out near three of the corners. Similar in origin to my tinker toys, but really quite different in appearance. Next I added some clusters of holes. A little here and there. Not overwhelming the page, just a highlight - so to speak.

I wanted to keep the number of tangles to a minimum. I am liking that whole minimalistic approach lately and you can really see it here. I connected some of the areas with tipple - those little, tiny circles. You can really do amazing things with tipple. Notice how they draw your eye into different portions of the drawing. 
I considered stopping at that point, but felt the drawing needed a bit more. So, I added more printemps in that upper right corner, as well as a segment of them in the lower right. 
It still needed a bit more, so I filled in some of the tinker toys with cheesecloth - which looks pretty much like screen! I love using it and it is such a forgiving tangle to draw. A white gelly roll pen added some highlights.
Then I stopped and looked. I left the drawing until the next day, and again looked and analyzed. The drawing felt complete to me, like it was e n o u g h. So, I stopped. Fun tangles, lovely negative space, and some warm, inviting color. When your drawing speaks to you and you are happy with it - that is when you know that enough is enough.