Knowing When to Stop

I confess. I've made changes to two paintings since I posted them here.

After sitting and staring at this painting for awhile I thought it just wasn't working. I needed to change the small tree and tone down some of the sky holes. They were too bright. I also cropped out much of the foreground green as I felt it was too muddy. Overall this painting has been too overworked.

I added a background color. I took this picture with my camera and the color is off slightly. You can see the pink color cast in the white edge of the paper. In reality it's more golden than orange.

I'm beginning to understand that the more I work on a painting, the more chance there is to damaging it.  Learning to paint in watercolors is learning about many different processes that are particular to watercolor. When is wet too wet? Which color goes down first and how should it blend? (often uncontrollably) Which colors are right? Planning is important, but sometimes you just get stuck as you get into it. Usually it's best to just walk away. 

I'm learning.