Boston Terrier in Watercolor

First painting I've done with my new Holbein professional grade paints I got for Christmas.  The Kuratake artists quality paints were good but the Holbeins are incredibly potent, mix well, and glaze unlike anything I've seen.  It's really easier to paint with these.  A good analogy is using a sharp knife versus a dull one.  Looking forward to trying a landscape with these. 

Urban sketching in Barcelona

Cooper in Watercolor

This is my favorite painting I've done so far. This is the first piece I've done using all professional grade paints.  My little sister sent me some Japanese artist quality paints for Christmas.  Although the pigment isn't as dramatic as others like Windor and Newton, I immediately noticed a huge difference in control with washes and their ability to glaze transparently over other colors.  This means I can use less paint, and underpainting is way more effective.  I will never do another painting with student grade paints again. I actually framed this one and hung it up.  

Small Castle

Practiced a quick painting to work on NOT overworking things.  Focused on abstracting objects and using either a single wash or wet on wet and mixing colors on the paper.  Tried using pen and ink for the castle detail.  Just an excercise rather than a painting so didn't care much about the outcome.

Bridge in Bruges

Painted this bridge from a photo from my recent trip to Bruges.  I felt that the painting looked great up until I started using my rigger to add detail.  There's a fine balance between suggestive detail and plain overkill.  Had some issues with establishing dark value as well.  I took 2 days on this painting, opting to take my time.  Although my paintings are consistently looking better, there are still many challenges to break through.  Some of my biggest challenges as a beginner with Watercolor:

1). Water and reflections

2). Expressing fine, realistic detail

3). Knowing when to stop

4). Abstracting shapes in the distance

5). Confidence with glazes

Overall, I'm happy with this painting but I see a lot of room for improvement.  With each piece that I do, I learn something.  I ended up going back to this painting several times and tweaking it.  At first, I had to add some very dark green to the water.  This created a nice contrast with the bridge and the building.  After that, something was still wrong with it and I thought a lot about what I could do to improve it.  I ended up working in some black in the tree on the far right in order to frame the bridge and buildings and to create additional contrast.

I feel like I may be overworking my paintings.  I'd love to take a class and get some feedback.  Here's an animated gif of the above painting.  Notice that it looks better prior to adding lots of detail. There seems to be a delicate balance between the need to add some darks to create value across the painting and allowing the paints to tell the story.  :

Cooper in pencil

Started off with the intention of a light sketch to use in a Watercolor painting but really liked the way it was turning out and decided to keep it simple with pencil.  Will follow this one up with a watercolor painting.  

Winter mountains

I like this one.  Followed a step by step instruction from David Bellamy's Winter Landscapes in Watercolour.   It lacks the resolution of his finished painting, but was excellent practice nonetheless.