This set of watercolors was completed with a tube of yellow ochre watercolor on 140 lb cotton watercolor paper. This project is another iteration of using a single tube of color to create an entire composition. I am starting to get a better understanding of how to use different amounts of water to create different saturations of color. This is a fun, but slightly tricky project, as if you get the saturations wrong, you very quickly find yourself with a blotchy page of undefined color (especially since there is only one color to start with!)

When I make a painting using only one tube of color, I’ve found that I have about 4 or 5 layers of color. The first is a very faint wash for the whole background, which I may or may not blot off portions of with a rag or paper towel to make a cloud effect. Then is a barely-more-saturated background layer. Next is one or two medium-saturated layers of middle ground. Finally, I have the foreground, which is with undiluted or barely diluted paint right from the tube.