Watercolor Landscape Practice

For these practice paintings I used cobalt blue, lemon yellow, alizarin crimson, and cadmium red. For the land in the practice painting I mixed lemon yellow and cobalt blue for a dark green shade, and for the orange parts of the sky I mixed cadmium red and lemon yellow. For the other practice painting I started painting the water with a mix of cobalt blue and a bit of cadmium red. 

During the process of making these two practice paintings, I started off with the one on the left and accidentally made two mistakes with this painting. I started off with painting the water, which is not the best step to start on when creating a watercolor painting since the background of the painting, the sky, should always be painted first so you can layer the land and water or the foreground and middle ground on top, a good technique for watercolor. When I started my second practice painting I learned that I should start with the sky and I successfully layered on the land in the middle ground of the painting, the correct next step. Another challenge I faced that was very unexpected was when I started the painting on the left I noticed the paper was starting to deteriorate and break down, making the paint look splotchy on the paper. I made this mistake because of too much stroking of the brush on my paper over and over, and also too much excess water in my paint, making the paper get soft. I learned from this experience that I should lightly brush the paper to avoid it breaking down, and also have more pigment and less water.