Painting in transparent watercolor

In working with transparent watercolor, the following things to remember will ensure a more successful outcome in your painting:
1. Paint light to dark
2. Paint large to small
3. Paint back ground to foreground
4. Paint intense to gray
In my classes at both the Palette and Chisel Academy in Chicago, and in my hometown, I often demonstrate these procedures in a step-by step manner.
In working with transparent watercolor, the following things to remember will ensure a more successful outcome in your painting:
1. The first step, called the "block-in” deals with the large areas of light and dark values. The large areas are the most important.
The second step creates the shape and form of the individual objects, and the last step adds the details.
2. In transparent watercolor you can always go darker but you can't always go lighter.
3. Transparent watercolor is best done in layers. Painting the back ground first enables you to layer the middle ground and then the foreground.
4. You can always make a color less intense but you can't always make a color more intense.

                   Block-in                                           Shape and Form                                        Detail