To some artists a drawing isn't finished until ALL the paper or canvas has been covered. But I don't think that always needs to happen. Before you create art ask yourself - Why am I drawing or painting this. What interests me about the subject? Is it a particular lighting effect? Perhaps a play of light against dark (usual for me). Then ask yourself "what do I need to draw to say everything I want to say". In the example above I loved the warm colours on the Elephant, the way the skin had been coloured by the dust and soil and the dark areas offset by the sunlit areas. The foliage helped to set the scene and lighting effect, the small amount of sky behind the leaves at the top told the viewer it was a sunny blue sky day. In my opinion I didn't need to draw anymore than that to display everything that interested me, everything I wanted the viewer to see and experience through my artwork. Anymore additions would have detracted from the areas I wanted the viewer to look at, giving them more chance of being distracted by things like extra foliage. Creating artwork like this can also look more real than a completely finished piece because it clearly demonstrates to the viewer that this has been drawn on a flat piece of paper even though it looks three dimensional, its exciting for the viewer to see how the layers developed to create that effect. And you know what else. Leaving a piece like this gives a feeling that the artist REALLY knows what they are doing, they didn't even have to finish the artwork for it to look good. ;) #wildlifeart #wildlifeartist #jmpag #pastelmat #clairefontaine #pastelpainting #pastelpencils