Layers of Mud

Today I ran a little drill from Watercolor Workshop (thanks, library), wherein I did some layering: wet on dry, wet on wet, backrun with water, and backrun with paint.  (and then I just played, because why not?)

Apparently it's Science Fiction Day, so I doodled accordingly.

The exercise really sort of underscored what my main issue with watercolor is: a complete and utter lack of patience.  Which is sort of mind-blowing to me, because I am perfectly passable with oils (or at least I was, fifteen years ago) which, I assure you, require a great deal more waiting around than watercolor does.  But maybe it's just because when you screw up oils you can go back over and fix them.  When you screw up watercolor is just sort of... stays screwed up.  I'm not talking about an errant smudge or blur or what-have-you, that can be turned into what we like to call "a happy accident".  I'm talking about irredeemable muddiness, which has long been my watercolor bane, and which 100% is chalked up to my inability to let things dry sufficiently before I start mucking around with the next color.

It should be interesting to see how I manage to cultivate greater patience in the coming year, and I have no doubt it will be of use to me in all my varied walks of life.