More water color experiments

Since I am trying to find out what water color does I have decided to forget images, at least for a while, and just examine what happens when I play around with my new colors.

Every water color instructor suggests that it is important to be able to produce several distinct shades of color with ease.  So since I love squares  I decided to start with a simple symmetrical arrangement.  That keeps me calm and I notice the whole idea of water color has gotten me quite nervous.  I imagine it has something to do with being an old dog who is afraid of new tricks.

Here is my first square experiment.  I first wet each square and then added the color, thinking this would make an even coat of paint.  As you can see I was wrong about that.

I did manage to get at least 3 or 4 levels of color.

Next I decided to play in each square.  The first third of the squares I dropped a color into the center of the wet square, then went around it with another color and surrounded that with a third color.  This was fun to watch as the colors blended willy nilly.  The next third of the squares were solid, taking up one of the colors in the mix next to it.  In the third squares I blended 2 colors trying to bring the whole thing together somehow.

As you can see, although it has a certain cheery quality it really could use more of an overall compositional drive.  Some darks and lights would help.  I could do that but I think it has had enough of my meddling.

Tomorrow - no squares - wet the whole paper- yikes!