Leaves in my dreams

Last night I tried to paint those leaves in my dreams. I kept doing too much, making the same mistakes over and over. I woke up at 6 am in a sweat so I got up, dressed and went to the gym to destress myself. That helped.

I worked with 6 different greens today. I still have the stem and leaf to deal with, but I am on firmer ground now and not so stressed out. I know what I need to do and have the skills to do it. There is an element of impending disaster with watercolor that doesn’t happen with acrylic or oil. In those two mediums one has the possibility of making corrections. I used to tell my students not to be concerned if they made a mistake in watercolor because I could fix anything and make it work. I said that to get them to relax so their strokes would be looser. And I could solve 99% of their mistakes. It is that pesky 1% that still drives me crazy.

Keep in mind that I have done no shading, and won’t until all the colors are worked out.