Watercolor Madness!!

Well, I had to laugh at this. I've had an idea in my head for quite some time to paint a watercolor painting of my two black and white dogs. I thought it would be a real challenge to paint black and white. I'd have one spot of red -the favorite red "bouncy ball" that Cookie loves and plays with all the time. I was inspired by the watercolor paintings of Cyrille Jubert.

www.thedogmuseum.com can see what I mean if you click on the link. Oh! I would love to paint a painting of my dogs like that! LOOK how beautiful his work is. Anyway, I thought I'd at least try. I know practically nothing about watercolor. I knew I had to layer my primary colors to get a nice black. Awhile back I purchased some Korean watercolors and along with the set they sent me four sample tubes of paint. There was a Chinese Lake Red, a Cobalt blue, A sap green and a brown. I put some of the red and the blue on the palette and used my Windsor and Newton yellow. I masked off the areas that I wanted to keep bright white and then painted a lot of yellow everywhere else. Then I decided to paint the bouncy ball. After painting it yellow tube I dipped into the red. The red was all dry-ish. It didn't mix well with the water and wouldn't thin out, making it too dark. So I switched to the Windsor and Newton red and finished up but there were still chunks of dry paint on my painting. Oh well. Then I went to make the black color on the dogs. I dipped into the blue and the red. What a mess. Same old DRY paint. It just stuck onto the sable tipped brush and wouldn't mix or blend. I was really disappointed and wondered if my whole set of Korean watercolors was like that. Those paints were terrible. I picked up one of the free sample tubes and looked closely at the label: Oil Paint. !!! Duh! Ha hahaha. So I squirted out some fresh WN watercolor paint and continued. Ick. I kind of made mud. Oh, well, then I started to rub off the frisket. When I rubbed it off, it tore the paper up! What a mess I have! I need a watercolor class! Will have to try again later but have to laugh for now!